Inversion of Shadows
by Demi-Saiyajin Prodigy
Summary: *In-Progress* It was supposed to have been just a legend. Or even less than that: a myth, a folktale told to children. But all legends are based in reality, and can return to lay waste to an unsuspecting world like Earth, just as it has others . . .
1. BOOK ONE, CHAPTER ONE

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Dragonball Z, or any of the characters therein. And this will be the only time that I mention that for the duration of this fic, since it's going to be quite long, and I don't really feel up to making a separate disclaimer for each chapter.

**_Inversion of Shadows_**

**BOOK ONE, CHAPTER ONE**

A pencil scratching across paper, quickly yet surely inscribing numbers and letters – though numbers, mostly – on the thin, ruled surface. Subtracting, multiplying, converting fractions into decimals, or vice versa. It was a soft sound, so soft in fact that a human would have heard nothing, but the wielder of the pencil was not human. Not completely, at least, though on more than one occasion, he'd wished that he were.

Beside the sheet of paper rested several other pencils, snapped clean in half, as though their owner had suffered a bout of ill temper and had taken it out upon them. Such was not the case, for their owner was a gentle boy, slow to anger; it merely was an effort to control his great strength enough to perform such fine actions as holding a writing implement, and he occasionally let slip a little too much. For this reason, his desk and closet held enough packages of such tools to shame a stationery store. And given how often he used them, he would likely need more before the passage of a year.

The life of a scholar, he supposed. Just like his mother had wanted from the start.

A smooth wave of ki, making its first movement in a little over an hour, began to slowly, yet purposefully, wander about the house. First, it made its way to the kitchen, stopping there for a moment, most likely to get a drink and perhaps a snack. It then came closer, accompanied by light, rapid footsteps barely audible even to his inhumanly sharp ears.

He pretty much ignored the footsteps and the ki, even when they both halted directly behind him. His homework occupied his mind right now, and if the figure behind him wanted attention, it wasn't, and never had been, shy about getting it.

This assertion was proven true a moment later.

"Niichan!" the figure called, and he suddenly felt a weight on his back and a pair of tiny, yet powerful arms encircle his neck; on any normal person, this would have been a devastating choke-hold, but to him, it was just an affectionate brotherly gesture.

Carefully, he pried the arms off his neck, gently setting his younger sibling on the floor before turning in his chair to face him. "Hey, Goten. So what's up, squirt?"

"I'm all done my sleepin'. I wanna go outside and play!" Goten said with classic four-year-old assertiveness.

Gohan chuckled. "Done with your sleeping, are you? Seriously, Goten, when was the last time you actually _slept_ during your afternoon nap? I'm willing to bet about . . . maybe a year."

Goten blushed guiltily. "Well, I don't get sleepy in the afternoons anymore. But Mama says I still hafta take naps, an' I wanna be good an' do what she says."

Ah, yes. The afternoon nap ploy. Gohan and his mother already knew, of course, that Goten was no longer in need of them – both mother and elder son would contend that the toddler was, in fact, the purest incarnation of energy that had ever existed – but they were more for the sake of the rest of the household than anything else; otherwise, the family would have long since forgotten what quiet was and held it as a most unusual and unnatural occurrence.

"Sorry, squirt, but I can't take you out right now; I've got a lot of homework to do," Gohan replied, with a note of reluctance; today was too beautiful a day to be confined to the indoors. "Maybe a little bit later, when I'm finished. Or Kaasan might get home early and she can take you."

Their mother had, after enduring an unhealthy amount of badgering from Bulma, finally consented to a sort of "girls' day out" in the city to get away for a short while so as not to go completely insane trying to raise a young, hyperactive demi-saiyan child. She had put Goten down for his nap, leaving Gohan in charge of him, just prior to her departure and planned to be back around dinnertime.

"Aw, niichan, I can't wait that long!" Goten whined, spreading his arms plaintively. "Alls you ever do is homework, anyway, and that's _boring_! Let's go outside an' have some fun! C'mon!"

"Goten . . ." Gohan began, watching as his younger brother pursed his bottom lip and drew his brows upward and together; this woebegone expression was one that he frequently used to manipulate his family, the one that made them melt and give in to his wishes. Unfortunately for Goten, it was not going to work this time. "When I'm finished, squirt. I'm sorry, okay?"

Disappointed, Goten bowed his head. "Okay . . ." he mumbled.

"I promise I'll try to be quick," Gohan said, reaching out to tousle his brother's wild hair that looked so much like their father's. "So in the meantime, how about you – hey!"

Goten had taken the opportunity to snatch Gohan's notes off the desk and dash across the room; the little boy looked over his shoulder and waved the sheets of paper as high in the air as he could. "You gotsta come catch me if you want your homework back!"

"Goten!" Gohan tried, though it was in futility and he knew it. He started across the room, pausing momentarily as his brother proceeded to climb up the bookshelf; the structure teetered precariously under the weight imbalance. "Goten, get down from there; it's really dangerous!"

"Nope, you gotsta come get me!"

Letting out an exasperated little growl – he loved his brother, but Kami he was annoying sometimes – he levitated a couple of feet until he was level with Goten. The younger boy tried to squirm away, but Gohan was too quick, and pried him off the bookshelf –

"Whoa!" the brothers cried in unison, and Gohan hurriedly jetted backward as the bookshelf crashed to the floor, its contents scattered about the bedroom. A stunned silence ensued.

Gohan found his voice first. "Are you okay, Goten? I _told_ you it was dangerous."

"I'm okay," Goten responded, staring down at the mess they'd created. "But Mama's gonna be _real_ mad at us."

Wearily, Gohan sighed. If they kept going like this, the house would be nothing more than a hole in the ground by the time Kaasan returned. It seemed like a no-win situation: either he let the house be destroyed or he didn't finish his homework. Though these two options now seemed diametrically opposed to one another, neither one would leave Kaasan very pleased.

And Kaasan's displeasure was something to be avoided.

At last, he shook his head. "No, Kaasan's _not_ going to get mad. I'll clean this up, and we just won't tell her it happened; it'll be our secret, okay?" Gohan lowered himself to the ground and carefully set Goten on his feet. "You go out front and wait for me, and then we'll play hide-and-seek."

Goten's face lit up. "You really mean it, niichan? All right!" He started to charge out of the room, but Gohan's hand caught the back of his collar, and he looked back, blinking.

"My notes, first, please?" Gohan smiled, nodding toward the rumpled sheets of paper in his younger brother's hand.

Absently, Goten shoved the papers at him, and he released his hold. Gohan knelt to collect and organize the pages as Goten's excited footfalls trailed off through the house, but stopped, and added as an afterthought, "And be careful not to –" A thud interrupted him, and he finished half-heartedly, " – knock the door down again. Oh, well."

Notes gathered, he gingerly returned the bookshelf to its original position. _A miracle it's still in one piece,_ he thought as he quickly and efficiently slid each book into its proper place. _Goten usually does more damage than this._

Living with a toddler that could very literally rip the house apart was quite a trying experience, one that few would envy. From unhinged doors, to split chairs and tables, to shattered dishes . . . the household hadn't wracked up such high maintenance costs since Gohan and his father had had to remain in Super Saiyajin form in the days immediately preceding the Cell Games. At the very least, it kept things from being boring while the world wasn't being threatened by aliens, cyborgs, or anything else this seemingly insane universe managed to concoct.

With his books in hand, Gohan made his way across the now prostrate front door to find Goten bouncing up and down from foot to foot and clapping his tiny hands in glee.

"What took you so long, niichan? I been waitin' an' waitin'!" the toddler chattered so quickly that Gohan could scarcely understand him. "Okay, _I_ get to hide first." Goten yanked on his arm until he'd forced him into a sitting position against the wall. "You gotsta sit here with your eyes closed and count to a million."

A soft chuckle escaped Gohan's lips, but he quickly smothered it under an amused grin and closed his eyes at his bother's impatient scowl. "Okay, Goten. Here we go. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . ."

Gohan continued to count for a few minutes, keeping a string of awareness on Goten's ki; when he was certain that the boy was out of earshot, he stopped the count and opened his eyes – and his textbook, wherein rested his notes and pencil. While Goten busied himself with trying to find a hiding spot, Gohan figured that he may as well finish off his homework.

About an hour or so ought to be enough . . .

* * *

Leaves rustled under his fingers as he pushed them aside. Goten poked his head through the space he'd cleared, looking this way and that to see if his brother had come looking for him yet. Seeing nothing, he smiled. Good. He still had time to find a better hiding spot.

He stumbled through the bush, stopping to brush off a bunch of leaves that had stuck to his clothes. One leaf, however, he instead picked off and brought it so close to his face that he went cross-eyed. A tiny black bug – probably an ant, though it was a bit tough to tell when he saw two images of it, the fuzzy one slightly overlapping the clear one – crawled across the small green expanse. After a minute of staring, his eyes started to hurt and he absently tossed away the leaf, all interest gone.

Aimlessly, Goten wandered through the woods, half-tripping over roots and clambering over fallen, moss-covered logs. All the while, he kept his eyes open for a good hiding place. Bushes, ditches, foxholes . . . Nah, those were no good; he'd get found quick. Stopping, he sighed huffily and put his hands on his hips. He probably didn't have too much time left; a million was a super-high number to count to, but counting was sort of a school thing, and Gohan was real good at school things, so he could probably do it fast.

Goten thoughtfully tightened his lips, shifting his gaze upward as his mind worked . . . His face brightened. Up. The treetops – they would be perfect! Since he couldn't fly yet, Gohan wouldn't think to look for him up there.

Delighted by the prospect of outsmarting his older brother, Goten hurried over to the biggest, fattest tree he could find, and tried to wrap his arms around it so that he could shinny up the trunk; unfortunately, his tiny limbs did not even fit around halfway.

"Hmm . . ." He paused, thinking. "Oh! I know!"

Backing up a bit, he straightened one hand into a flat blade, just like Mama had taught him in their sparring lessons, and drove forward, into the trunk – then blinked as he found that he was now elbow-deep in the tree. Frowning – that wasn't supposed to have happened – he tried to pull his arm out, but failed.

"Aw, shoot! Now I'm stuck!" he huffed, and pulled harder. Still nothing. Goten braced his feet against the trunk, and grabbed hold of his immobile arm; he began to pull once more, bending backward for more leverage. Slowly, his arm started to give –

A rush of wind passed over him, abruptly freeing his arm, and sending him to a rough landing on his rear end; the tree crashed down just barely beside him. He winced at the loud noise and the tremors that it sent through the ground.

Wide-eyed with surprise, Goten sighed, relieved. "Phew! What – Waugh!"

He'd glanced over his shoulder in time to see a rather vicious-looking dark blur lash out at him, and sprang into the air, barely evading it. Twisting and somersaulting in mid-leap, he landed on the newly-created stump, and adopted a tight defensive crouch – once again, learned from Mama. Narrowing his eyes to look more like a warrior – or at least Trunks always said that narrow eyes did that – Goten took a moment to assess his attacker.

It was a weird-looking creature, quite unlike any forest animal he had ever seen – and he had seen plenty. Not very big, it nonetheless appeared quite strong, with its thickly muscled legs and arms – at least Goten _thought_ they were arms; the whatever-it-was was on all fours. It was furless, and its skin was light grey, interrupted by huge blotches of a darker shade of the same colour. Bright orange eyes, glowing like embers, fixed menacingly upon him as the thing gnashed its sharp yellow teeth.

It was, quite simply, the neatest, most wonderful creature that Goten had ever seen.

Giggling, Goten abandoned his combat stance. "Hi there! My name's Goten. What's –" He'd extended his hand in greeting, but the creature swatted at it, and he was forced to jerk it backward. Unfazed, he finished, " – yours?"

He smiled, patiently waiting for the thing's response . . . but it merely continued to stare at him, though the stare was different; the eyes no longer glowed with hatred, but instead looked more confused than anything else, and the creature had quit gnashing its teeth.

After a moment, Goten nodded in resigned understanding. "Oh. Guess you can't talk, huh? Too bad. 'S'not as fun when you can't talk." He calmly sat down on the stump. "I –"

The creature bolted into the woods.

"Hey!" Goten called out, offended. He lightly sprang to his feet and charged after it. "No fair startin' a race without warnin' me first!"

Keeping the creature in sight was easy, for it wasn't very fast, and the grey of its body stood out plainly against the greens and browns of the woods. Swiftly, deftly, Goten followed it, ducking and weaving around trees, through bushes, and hopping over roots. The chase continued for several minutes, and he was just starting to tire when it abruptly ended.

The creature suddenly halted at the far side of a clearing, and he stumbled to a stop on the near side, panting, yet smiling once more.

"That was pretty fun!" he said. "But next time you gotsta wa –" He cut himself off as he noticed that the creature was paying him absolutely no attention. Rather, it had its head stuck in the bushes, and was making all sorts of weird little grunting, growling, and gurgling noises. Concern worked his way onto his features; those didn't sound like good noises. "You don't sound too good. You okay?" He received no answer, but he continued anyway, an idea having occurred to him, "I know. Maybe niichan can help . . ."

Without warning, the creature turned back to him, causing him to blink. Its eyes were glowing again as it advanced upon him . . .

* * *

With a contented sigh, Gohan closed his textbook much earlier than he had expected. He should have expected it though, as it was only chemistry – something at which he'd found himself to be rather good.

He headed back into the house, his mind calmly travelling upon the thread of awareness he'd attached to Goten's ki. It wasn't that he was worried, for he knew for a fact that the toddler was okay – the ki had neither spiked nor dropped; he would have noticed that instantly---but he really ought to have been keeping closer tabs on him. After all, he _was_ his brother.

Ah. There Goten was. Not much more than a quarter mile away from the house and his aura was laced only with curiosity; he had probably found some small animal and become fascinated with it: an almost daily occurrence. Idly, Gohan considered waiting a while before going off in search of him. Extended periods of peace and quiet were so rare that he should enjoy the opportunity while he had it. He could stretch out with a favourite book, or go outside and rework one of his old katas; it had, after all, been a few years since he had done any sort of training whatsoever –

Gohan froze abruptly, standing over his desk, eyes wide. Along his thread of awareness, something was wrong. Goten's ki was no longer alone. No there were other presences about him. Five . . . no, wait . . . six unfamiliar powers. And it wasn't just that they were unfamiliar; they felt . . . odd.

Ki, being as it was a person's life force, was energetic, in constant motion, crackling like electricity. Even as a person slept, though his ki was at a lower ebb, it still sparked. It simply _felt_ alive, as though in itself it was a living creature. The new ki that Gohan was sensing was different, however. It was sluggish, even static, and had a peculiar sensation of . . . _deadness_ about it. A contradiction so complete that he wasn't sure that the feeling could actually be defined as ki.

But whatever it was, he doubted that it could be good.

Not wasting another second, Gohan rushed over to his window, threw it open, and took off in search of Goten.

* * *

Head tilted to one side in curiosity, Goten watched the creature as it crept toward him, its eyes bright and teeth bared. It really did look mean, but he wasn't worried; lots of animals looked mean sometimes, but that didn't mean that they actually were. Besides, it had backed off once before.

Still, when it got really close and didn't stop, his muscles stiffened, a thrill of warning stretching them tight; his legs felt a sudden urge to step backward. He resisted the impulse, though, since it was a silly one. The thing wasn't going to hurt him. He just knew it.

There. He was right.

The creature halted two feet in front of him, and cast its orange eyes to the sky. A soft noise hissed among its teeth. Confused, Goten opened his mouth to ask what the matter was, but before even a half-sound could pass his lips, the creature darted into the forest, melting through the leaves without so much as a rustle.

Barely a second later, he heard his brother's voice. "Goten!"

Why had the thing run away? Was it scared of Gohan? That didn't make sense; sure, Gohan was real strong and everything – Mama said he even saved the whole world one time – but he was nice, too. He wouldn't hurt it.

Goten blinked to realize that Gohan was now standing in front of him, blocking his view; ignoring him – he had started to say something – he pushed past him and all but dove into the bushes through which the creature had disappeared. He searched all along the clearing, leaves around him rustling loudly as he crawled along the forest floor. There was no sign of the creature anywhere; it had vanished completely.

Disappointed, Goten crawled out of the bushes and stood. His brother stared at him weirdly, one eyebrow raised as if to ask him what in the world he was doing. Frowning, he scolded, "Niichan! You scared 'im away!"

Gohan's forehead wrinkled. "I scared _who_ away?"

"My new friend!" Goten responded exasperatedly, but the mood did not last long; he smiled broadly, and gestured in excitement as he continued to speak. "Oh, you shoulda seen 'im, niichan! He was the _neatest_-lookin' thing ever! He –"

"You saw something?"

"Yeah!" Goten went on, not the least bit irritated at Gohan for interrupting. "It was kinda small, but had all these lumpy muscles, and cool glowin' eyes, and . . . Niichan?"

Gohan stood still, eyes abstracted; clearly, he wasn't paying any attention at all. In fact, it looked like he was doing that ki-sensing thing that he did all the time – something that Goten had been wanting to learn for a while now. Mama wouldn't teach it to him for some reason; he made a mental note to ask Gohan to teach him later.

At last, Gohan shook his head, and looked at him again. "Sorry, Goten. I thought I'd sensed something out here and –"

Gohan's voice broke off in a hiss, and he reflexively knelt down, pressing a hand to his right calf, his face contorted in pain.

"Niichan!" Goten rushed to his brother's side. Concern washing over his face, he lightly placed his hand on Gohan's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Gohan let out a heavy breath, and opened his tightly-shut eyes. He nodded, once, though his expression was still pained. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"What ha –" Goten started, but Gohan pressed the index finger of his free hand over his lips, and he obediently fell silent; Gohan was doing that ki-sensing thing again.

After a minute, Gohan sighed. "Still nothing. Whatever's out there is really good at hiding its ki."

Goten pushed his brother's finger away from his mouth. "What happened, niichan? Are you really sure you're okay?"

"It's nothing serious, Goten. Really. But I think we ought to head home now, all right? I'll need to clean this wound."

Normally, Goten would have argued about this; they hadn't been outside for that long, after all. Less than an hour, probably, and that was hardly enough time to have any real fun. But Gohan's getting hurt had spoiled his happy mood, and so he let Gohan scoop him up into his arms and jump into the air.

As they flew back toward the house, Goten glanced behind them, at the clearing. He had this funny feeling in his stomach that his new friend was the thing that attacked Gohan; that much he knew almost for certain.

What he didn't know for certain, though he would have liked to, was _why_.

* * *


	2. BOOK ONE, CHAPTER TWO

_**Inversion of Shadows**_

**BOOK ONE, CHAPTER TWO**

Gingerly, Gohan rolled his pant leg up to his knee and leaned over to inspect his wound. Four parallel scratch marks cut deep into his flesh, a thin trail of blood leaking from each one. He no longer felt any pain, but the area around the wound had already swollen slightly and was starting to itch. Not a serious injury, by any means, but he did wonder what sort of creature could so easily pierce his tough flesh.

Goten peered closely at the scratches, tilting his head clinically. "That looks nasty."

"Nah, it's nothing. Not that deep." Gohan smiled reassuringly. "Just go grab me a washcloth, will you, squirt?"

"Okay, niichan." Goten nodded, and trotted out of the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, "I'll be right back!"

Rising from his chair, Gohan limped across the floor to the cupboards. He pulled one open, and his eyes quickly scanned the shelves until they fell on a large mixing bowl. Carefully, he slid it off the shelf, and hobbled over to the sink, all the while resisting the persistent urge to scratch the injury. He twisted on the faucet, then placed his hand under the stream of water until it reached a temperature just beyond comfortable warmth.

By the time Gohan reseated himself, Goten skipped back into the room, carrying a limp dark blue cloth. "Here's the washcloth, niichan!"

"Thanks." Gohan accepted it gratefully, and dunked it into the water. He squeezed out the excess before placing it on his wound. "Now Goten," he began, rubbing the cloth along the highest scratch and noting that his brother watched the action with great interest. "I don't want you telling Kaasan about this. She'll freak out."

"But . . . isn't that fibbin'?" Goten asked hesitantly. "'S'not good to fib."

Gohan dipped the washcloth back into the bowl, tainting the water pink with his blood; he got to work on the second scratch before he answered, choosing his words carefully. "Only if she asks you directly if I got hurt, but she won't. All she'll ask is what you did today, and if I finished my homework. And we played hide-and-seek, and I _did_ finish. So it's the truth. Right?" When Goten didn't answer, Gohan lifted his head, and looked him straight in the eye. "Right?"

Goten frowned, considering. At last, he nodded. "Right."

"Good." Gohan returned to the cleansing of his injury, wincing slightly as he touched a still-sensitive spot; he glanced up to reassure Goten that he was all right. "Besides," he continued, "this'll be all healed up by tomorrow, or the day after, tops. No reason to get Kaasan worried about it."

A surprised yelp preceded a thud at the front of the house, and both boys jerked their heads up.

"Rats! She's home early!" Hurriedly, Gohan rolled his pant leg back down. "Remember, Goten, don't tell her!"

"Son Goten, did you break this door down again?" their mother's angry voice carried through the small house.

Gohan rushed about the kitchen, dumping out, rinsing, and putting back the mixing bowl, and depositing the washcloth in the bathroom – all to hide any sign of tending to an injury; rarely had he moved so quickly outside of battle. By the time Kaasan entered – carrying a grocery bag in each arm, something he thought most unusual for a "girls' day out" – he was standing beside Goten with what he hoped was an innocent expression on his face.

"Here, Kaasan, let me help," he offered, politely taking one of the bags from her and setting it on the table.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she said, before placing the other bag next to the first, and sternly turned her glare onto Goten. "Now Goten-chan, how many times have I told you not to knock down the front door? We can't keep reattaching it, you know."

Guiltily, Goten bowed his head and looked at her from under his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, Mama. I'll try an' be more careful from now on."

Kaasan's glare slowly melted from her face, and she chuckled softly. "All right, Goten-chan, I forgive you. Just help Gohan-chan and me unpack these groceries and we'll call it even."

"Okay!" the little boy chirped, all traces of shame erased from his features as though never there.

"So Kaasan, what's with the groceries, anyway?" Gohan asked as he placed a few items in various cupboards, hoping the conversation would distract her from the fact that he was limping. "I thought you were out with Bulma-san today."

Kaasan sighed, handing a loaf of bread down to Goten. "I was. But I just kept worrying about the house, and I realized that we were running low on a few things . . . I thought about how awful it would be if you boys ran out of food . . . Bulma just says that I don't know how to relax, but she hasn't been a mother as long as I have; she'll understand in a few years – Goten-chan!"

Gohan almost laughed as he noticed that Goten's cheeks were puffed out like a squirrel's in winter and a ring of crumbs circled his mouth; the loaf of bread, now half-eaten, was still clutched in his tiny hands.

Goten looked up at her bashfully and swallowed. "Sorry, Mama. I got hungry." He held what remained of the bread out to her. "Do you want –"

"No, no, that's fine, sweetie," Kaasan said in exasperation, raising one palm to refuse the offer. "You just sit down and finish that."

"Thanks, Mama!" Goten happily boosted himself onto a chair and continued eating.

"I swear, it's a miracle we _ever_ have food in the house, the way you two eat." She shook her head as she finished emptying the bag. "So what did you boys do while I was gone?"

Gohan shot his brother a warning glare, so briefly that no normal person would have caught it; though Goten never broke his word on purpose, he was notorious for forgetting that he'd made a promise. "Oh, nothing much, Kaasan. Just played a little hide-and-seek after I finished my homework. Right squirt?" His voice was a little stilted, since the words were only a half-truth, and despite what he'd told Goten earlier, they felt like a lie; lying was something at which Gohan was awful, and with which he felt ill at ease. He had, however, recognized its occasional necessity.

"Mm-hm." Goten nodded, mouth still full. He darted a glance at Gohan as if for reassurance and swallowed the bite he'd been chewing. "We jus' got here a few minutes 'fore you did."

"Well, that must have been . . . Mph!" Kaasan stretched up on her tiptoes, trying to slide a box onto the top shelf in one of the cupboards, but she couldn't quite reach.

"Here, Kaasan, I'll get that for you," Gohan offered, extending his arm to take the box; she gratefully allowed him to do so.

"Thank you, Gohan-chan. You're such a help." She turned back to Goten. "As I was saying, that must have been a lot of fun for you, playing hide-and-seek."

Nodding enthusiastically, Goten explained, "Yeah, it was _lotsa_ fun! I saw the most neatest animal ever! I never saw nothin' like it before!"

Kaasan smiled fondly. "That's wonderful, sweetie. What did it look like?"

Gohan stiffened, eyes wide with worry; if Goten started talking about whatever creature he'd seen out in the woods, he could easily bring up the injury . . . "Oh, you know Goten, Kaasan; he always exaggerates about stuff like this," he said nervously before Goten had a chance to answer.

In that moment, Gohan found himself the recipient of two less-than-happy stares, one each from his mother and his brother, and barely managed to suppress a gulp.

"Gohan-chan, don't interrupt your brother!" Kaasan scolded. "I raised you to have better manners than that!"

Gohan stammered, "I-I . . . Sorry, Kaasan, I –"

"Yeah!" Goten joined in. "'Sides, that ain't the thing you told me not to tell Mama!"

Cringing, Gohan slapped his forehead. So much for keeping the wound a secret . . .

Kaasan fixed him with a suspicious glare, her eyes narrowing crossly, making him wish that he could simply vanish, or that he knew his father's Instant Transmission technique so that he could be almost anywhere but in the kitchen with his angry mother. Unfortunately, he wasn't that lucky. _I'm going to get in so much trouble . . ._

"So there's something that your big brother doesn't want you to tell me, is there?" Though she was speaking to Goten, her dark eyes remained on Gohan. "Well, Goten-chan, I'm sure he meant well . . . but it's not good to keep things from your mommy."

Gohan looked down at Goten, a silent plea in his eyes; the little boy's own eyes darted indecisively from him to their mother – but Gohan was well aware that this was a losing battle.

Finally, Goten crumbled. "Somethin' attacked niichan out in the woods an' he got hurt."

Tightening his lips, Gohan braced himself for the explosion.

"What?" she exclaimed, grabbing his arm and forcing him into a chair. "My goodness, Gohan-chan, you shouldn't be up and about when you're hurt! You could make things worse! Where's the wound?"

"It's on my right leg, Kaasan, but it's not –" he cut himself off as she rolled up his pant leg and began to examine the scratches.

"Good Kami-sama, these are nearly half an inch deep! Goten-chan, you remember where we keep the bandages; could you run and get them for me, please?"

Gohan acknowledged the wordless apology on Goten's face as the little boy sprinted off to do their mother's bidding. He really couldn't blame him for breaking down; even the most stalwart tended to do so under one of Kaasan's scowls.

"Honestly, Gohan-chan, you should have told me about this," Kaasan admonished. "I'm your mother, and it's my job to take care of you."

Gohan smiled indulgently. "I know, Kaasan, but it's really not that serious a wound; I already cleaned it myself, and it'll heal on its own in a day or two."

"I don't care," she countered. Without looking up, she accepted the bandages when Goten offered them to her, and began to wrap them tightly around his calf. "You're still my little boy and my responsibility."

Gohan winced at the pressure being placed on his injury, but he quit protesting, feeling a sudden pang of sympathy for his mother. In her voice, though she'd clearly tried to hide it, he had detected an inkling of sorrow, and he thought he knew from where it stemmed: she was afraid that he didn't need her anymore. He was strong and capable enough to handle any physical threats, could treat any injuries that he _did_ get, could cook for himself – not very well, admittedly, but he still _could_ . . . Everyone, he supposed, wanted to be needed, and maybe it was wrong of him to take that away from her.

So he sat back quietly, and let Kaasan do what she felt she needed to do.

* * *

Four days. _Four_. He couldn't fathom it.

Shaking his head in utter disbelief, Gohan reapplied the bandages. The wound hadn't healed at all, remaining as fresh as the day he'd gotten it. Even were he fully human, there should have been at least some small measure of healing by now. But there was nothing save for the absence of swelling, and that disturbed him greatly. Something very strange was going on.

So strange, in fact, that he was seriously considering consulting Dende and Piccolo-san on the matter. While he disliked the idea of bothering them – especially Dende, since being Guardian of Earth had to be a pretty demanding job – for something to which he was probably overreacting, he wasn't sure of what else to do. The injury just couldn't be normal, and he would be most appreciative were he able to get a few answers.

All this was assuming, of course, that he could find a way to get out of the house; Kaasan insisted that he stay indoors until he was fully healed, and at the rate that Gohan was going, that would constitute the rest of his life. In theory, he could just sneak out, but . . . that was an awfully rotten road to take. Besides, every time he'd ever tried in the past, he had gotten caught. What he needed was an honest opportunity.

And, as he walked into the kitchen to continue his break from his homework, one was kind enough to present itself.

"Oops!" Goten pulled a large sack of flour too close to the edge of the counter, and it toppled, dredging both child and floor in thick white powder and clouding up onto the lower half of Kaasan's bright yellow dress.

Kaasan squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw in a clear attempt to control her temper.

"Don't worry, Mama, I'll clean it up!" Goten offered cheerily, pulling the now-empty bag onto the floor, and bent down to unsuccessfully shovel the flour back inside of it. He looked up at Gohan's approach, appearing akin to the world's happiest ghost. "Hiya, niichan! I'm helpin' Mama make cake!"

Raising his eyebrows, Gohan smiled dubiously. "And a fine job you're doing, too."

A particularly carelessly-tossed handful of flour flew up and struck Kaasan on the cheek, and her face twitched, an obvious indication of her mounting annoyance; she took a deep breath, however, and seemed to regain her composure.

"Goten-chan?" she asked, her voice taut with restrained impatience; Goten stopped shovelling flour and looked up at her. "Why don't you let Mama handle this while you go wash up and change into some clean clothes?"

Shrugging innocently, Goten agreed. "Okay, Mama."

Gohan chuckled and shook his head in amusement as he noticed that Goten's steps were leaving a set of white footprints in their wake. He waited until the little boy had left the room, to speak up. "Looks like you're having a rough day."

Kaasan sighed, wiping the flour from her cheek. "I sometimes wonder how I'm ever able to get things done in this house. Half Saiyajin or not, that boy has far too much energy for anyone's good."

"No argument there," Gohan said as he retrieved a broom and dust pan from the hall closet. "You know . . . if you really need him out of your hair . . . I could take him over to Bulma-san's for the rest of the day."

Kaasan frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. "How's the wound?"

Gohan awkwardly lowered his head in embarrassment. "Kaasan, really, I'm fine. I promise I won't strain myself."

Kaasan's face softened a fraction. "Gohan-chan, I don't know . . ."

A high-pitched crash echoed from elsewhere in the house, quite possibly the shattering of porcelain. Almost immediately, it was followed by Goten's apologetic voice. "Mama, I think I broke the soap-holder-thingy!"

"On second thought," Kaasan amended, surprising Gohan by yanking both the broom and the dust pan from his hands, "feel free to take him."

She rushed toward the crash so quickly that Gohan blinked, wondering if she's always been that fast. Well. That didn't matter. What mattered was that he now had a legitimate excuse to leave the –

"Yay!" Goten's exclamation nearly shook the little house, and the toddler burst into the room, now wearing a miniature replica of the Kame school fighting gi – save there was no sensei's symbol, and the sleeves of the dark blue undershirt reached down to his wrists – then attached himself to Gohan's leg. "Mama says you're takin' me to Trunks's house! Let's go! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Gohan spared a half-second to be thankful that Goten had latched onto his left leg rather than his right, before responding. "Whoa, cool it a bit, squirt. And it'll be a whole lot easier for me to hurry if you let go of my leg."

Goten loosed his grip and Gohan raced him to the door to ensure that it did not get broken down yet again – repairing it twice within the same week would have been most irritating and Kaasan's day had been stressful enough already.

"C'n I call it for us, niichan? Can I, please?" Goten begged, tugging insistently on his pant leg.

"Sure, squirt. Go for it."

Grinning, Goten cupped his hands around his mouth. "Kinto'un!"

From the heavens, a pale yellow streak descended in a softened zigzag pattern until it floated in front of them in the form of a gently undulating cloud. Goten gleefully hopped aboard and would have taken off on his own had he any clue which way led to his destination. Gohan climbed on behind him, and they were off.

The wind blasted hard against Gohan's face, stinging his eyes and flattening his hair, though the speed of kinto'un's flight was much slower than his own; he'd always erected a weak ki shield to act as a buffer against the wind's effects when he flew under his own power. In front of him, Goten whooped in joy, spreading his arms wide to allow the breeze to flap his long sleeves.

Gohan commanded the cloud to roll, to corkscrew, to dive and climb, all so rapidly that the ground seemed both above and below them at the same time. Gravity alternated pushing them down and to one side or the other; blue and green tumbled end over end almost nauseatingly until Gohan chose to level off the flight.

"Whoa . . ." Goten said dazedly, putting one hand to his head as if to stop it from spinning. After a few seconds, however, he turned an excited face on Gohan. "Let's do that again!"

"Maybe on the way back home." Gohan pointed ahead of them. "See? We're coming up on the city."

Sure enough, in the near distance, the slender spires that were skyscrapers rose into the air, gradually growing closer and closer. Gohan weaved around the buildings, which were very like a forest in their own way. They quickly thinned out, and then gave way entirely to blocks of multiple-dome houses, largely a residential area.

"There it is, niichan! There it is!" Goten called, pointing his chubby finger toward a house that consisted of several large yellow domes spread out over a few expansive courtyards. A full sphere rested near the edge of the property, far from any of the domes, a powerful ki signature emanating from it – Vegeta's no doubt.

Gohan guided kinto'un down into one of the courtyards, and was surprised to see Bulma, dressed in oil-stained coveralls and safety goggles, and her aqua hair tied back in a ponytail, making her way to the house; he stopped the cloud beside her, and she pushed the goggles to the top of her head.

"Well, hey, you guys!" she greeted, a smile stretching her lips. "Wasn't expecting to see you today."

Goten hopped off kinto'un, looking around almost aimlessly, and Gohan would have thought that he hadn't even noticed Bulma's presence if the little boy hadn't paused to say, "Niichan brought me here to see Trunks! Where is he?"

Bulma's smile shifted to a rueful smirk. "I should've guessed that, I suppose. He's –"

"Right here!" a youthful voice piped up, followed quickly by its owner, a boy no taller than Goten despite the fact that he was a year older. He grabbed hold of Goten's arm, and began to tug the other boy along behind him. "Kaasan, me and Goten's gonna go spar."

"Hold it a second, Trunks-chan!" Bulma commanded sharply, and the boys halted. "You can go ahead and spar, but I don't want you two throwing each other through the walls this time. Just because we've got money doesn't mean that I want to spend it all on household repair. Got it?"

"Sure, Kaasan. Whatever," Trunks sighed, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Let's go, Goten!"

Bulma huffed indignantly as the boys ran off. "That boy is as insufferable as his father, sometimes! I'll be shocked if it turns out that he actually listened to me!"

"Yeah . . ." Gohan said. "I hope you don't mind me bringing Goten over here without asking first . . . but Kaasan's having a pretty stressful day, and I thought that . . ."

"Nah, don't worry about it, Gohan-kun," Bulma responded, turning back to him. "It gives _me_ a break, too, and I deserve one every once in a while." She smiled. "So, why don't you get your butt off that cloud and come on inside? I'm sure that Okaasan has some tea made, and plenty of desserts to go with it. Feel free to help yourself."

"Ah . . ." Gohan always hated to refuse offers of hospitality – especially if they included such tempting treats as Mrs. Briefs' desserts – but his calf abruptly started to itch, reminding him of his plans. "Thanks very much, Bulma-san, but . . . I've got something that I need to go and take care of, and it can't wait."

"You sure? Like I said, feel free."

"Sorry, I really can't."

Bulma shrugged. "All right. Some other time, then. See ya later, kiddo."

"Bye." Gohan waved as he once again took to the air on kinto'un. Once sufficiently out of eyeshot, he sighed in relief; the Briefs family was often more insistent than Bulma had just been, making already tough refusals all the more difficult.

Shaking his head to rid it of such trivial thoughts, Gohan urged kinto'un westward, to Dende's Lookout.

* * *

Goten put his palms together and bowed at the waist before sinking into a combat crouch, front leg bent, fists raised, and one arm pulled back; across from him, Trunks mirrored the position, a cocky smirk on his face.

And then leaped.

Goten matched the strike, and his fist crashed against Trunks' in a stalemate. Over their straining limbs, Goten stared his friend dead in the eye, and flashed him a mischievous grin. The other boy bared his teeth in response.

Trunks suddenly pulled his arm out of the contest for supremacy; overbalanced, Goten staggered forward, stumbling right into Trunks' solid follow-up kick to his chest. He sailed backward a few feet before suffering a hard landing on his rear. Grimacing, he sat up, rubbing at the pained area.

"Ack!" Goten's hands instinctively shot up to catch Trunks' foot just before it would have smashed into his face, and held it tight in spite of its owner's attempts to struggle free. Glancing down, he noticed that his opponent's other leg was within easy reach of his own, and he took full advantage; he cleanly swept the leg out from under Trunks, at the same time releasing his hold. Knowing, however, that this move would only keep him down for a couple seconds, Goten scrambled to his feet, taking up a defensive stance.

True to form, Trunks kicked himself up and slid also into a defensive posture. He smirked approvingly. "Hey, not bad. That was a pretty cool move."

Goten giggled. "Gee, thanks Trunks. I been practisin'!"

"Well. That's good," Trunks said. "But let's see if ya been practisin' enough ta stop _this_!"

And he sprang again. Goten dodged this time, and moved in to strike at an opening; though Trunks managed to block the first attack, Goten had expected that, and put most of his power into the second, his punch connecting hard with his opponent's cheek. Seeing an opportunity, he pressed his offence; but by this time, Trunks had recovered somewhat and was able to counter. Strikes, blocks, and dodges blended together on both sides, seemingly following a jerky, childish choreography. At times, the boys struck twin blows, driving each other backward, only for them to charge straight into the fray time and time again.

As the spar progressed, Goten found himself being driven backward by his friend's attacks. He was going to lose this match if he didn't think of something quick – there!

Goten tilted his head marginally to evade Trunks' fist, and drove his knee into the other boy's stomach, then uncurled his leg for another blow; he watched with satisfaction as Trunks dropped to the ground. One more hit ought to clinch it for him –

Trunks caught his punch.

Goten blinked in surprise; Trunks, just barely on his knees, growled and lifted his head to reveal a quite furious face. His free hand gripped Goten's forearm. "Ha!"

"Wah!" Goten cried as he was abruptly flung into the air, sailing a dozen feet before his back slammed into a wall. Limply, he slid to the ground.

"Yeah! Ha, ha! I win again!" he heard Trunks' triumphant voice. "That's best three outta five for me!"

Slowly, Goten climbed to his feet, rubbing irritably at his back; Trunks hadn't had to throw him so hard. "We didn't have five matches, yet."

"Yeah, we did!" Trunks argued, putting his fists on his hips. "You just dunno how ta count!"

Goten frowned indignantly. "I can count!"

"Yeah, whatever. I still won more of 'em than you."

Before Goten could form a reply, something small and hard fell on top of his head. Curious, he plucked it off to examine it. Thin, pale yellow . . . it looked like a piece of the wall . . . He looked back, and saw a spider web pattern of cracks; he turned back to Trunks. "Your mama's gonna yell at us when she sees this. We weren't s'posed to throw each other into the walls."

"She said we weren't supposed ta throw each other _through_ the walls," Trunks corrected, superiority colouring his tone. "And ya didn't go through it, didja? So we ain't done nothin' wrong!"

Goten thought about this logic for a moment, then decided that it made sense.

"B'sides, gettin' in trouble ain't always so bad," Trunks went on. "But ya wouldn't know that, would ya? You and Gohan-san can be such mama's boys that I bet ya never get in trouble at home." He turned on his heel, and waved his hand in a gesture to follow him. "Come on, let's go in. Obaasan's been makin' cookies today."

Goten jogged to catch up, and though excited at the thought of cookies, he was frowning; he instantly leaped to his family's defence. "Me an' niichan ain't mama's boys!" Not that he knew what the term 'mama's boy' really meant, but Trunks' tone had left him no doubt that it was an insult. "Niichan got in trouble a couple days ago!"

Apparently interested, Trunks raised an eyebrow. "Really? What'd he do?"

"Well," Goten started, his anger vanishing as he realized that he hadn't yet shared his latest adventure. "Me an' niichan was playin' hide-and-seek out in the forest, an' I found this real neat-lookin' animal, an' we had a race, an' when it was over, niichan came an' he musta scared it away . . ." Had he bothered to glance to his side, he would have seen Trunks roll his eyes impatiently, but he was too focused on his tale. " . . . I think it scratched 'im an' he told me not to tell Mama, only I kinda did anyway, 'cause she looked mad, an' that's why he got in trouble."

"Oh, please, that ain't noth – scratches?"

"Uh-huh," Goten answered, wondering why Trunks seemed to find that detail so interesting. "Four of 'em, jus' like this." He extended one arm, and used the index finger of his other hand to draw four straight lines across it. "Only they're on his leg. Why?"

Trunks shook his head. "No reason. Just that I saw some marks like that on Tousan's arm yesterday. Weird."

Goten's face wrinkled. "Yeah, that _is _weird."

"And I think his trainin' has been goin' kinda funny since then," Trunks added. "He's been more grumpy than usual and he only gets like that when the grav room breaks, or somethin' and messes up his trainin'."

"Hmm." Goten thought for a moment. "Nothin' weird's been goin' on with niichan . . . Hey, if the same thing happened to your papa, then maybe one of those cool animals is here, too! We should go look!"

"Yeah!" Trunks agreed readily, his face lighting up. "But the _cookies_ first. Race ya!"

"Hey, wait up!" Goten called after him, and both boys sprinted into the house.

* * *

Something was different. _Wrong_.

Or was it wrong? He had only been on this planet for twelve . . . no. Four years. The years here were three times as long as they were back home; he didn't understand why Earthlings had such a long year. It had been explained to him, of course, but the whole concept still made little sense to him. All this business of the planet orbiting around only one sun . . .

He shook his head to clear it; he was allowing himself to get sidetracked again. The point was that he hadn't been on Earth long enough to know its regular cycles, so he couldn't be sure whether the changes were good or bad, natural or unnatural. But even so, he was angry at himself for his lack of knowledge.

What kind of Guardian was he if he was so ignorant of the planet he was supposed to protect?

"Dende-sama, are you all right?" came a low, concerned voice.

Not at all surprised by the question, he glanced over his shoulder for a moment at his assistant before turning to peer once more over the edge of the Lookout; he leaned heavily on his tall wooden staff. "Yes, I suppose I'm all right, Popo-san." He paused, his already deep frown growing more pronounced; the words felt like somewhat of a lie, so at length, he added, "But I'm not entirely certain if I might say the same for Earth."

"Oh, my. Is there something wrong?" Popo asked, and out of the corner of his eye, Dende saw him step beside him at the edge of the platform.

Dende briefly tightened his lips before answering. "I don't know. I've felt a change in the planet's energy for a few weeks now . . . but I don't know what it is, or whether it's normal."

"You are Guardian of this planet, Dende-sama," Popo said, patiently as always. "And as such, it is often wise to trust your instincts on these matters. Does the change feel harmful?"

"I don't know," he repeated. It seemed to him that he'd been saying that far too often lately, both out loud and in his head. "It's just . . ."

He blinked, and hardened his downward stare. Something seemed to be approaching . . .

"Aah!" he yelped, falling flat on his back as a yellow streak zoomed over him, barely in front of his nose. His staff clattered to the floor next to him. Somewhat dazed, Dende climbed to his feet.

"Eh-heh-heh-heh," came a nervous laugh, and Dende looked up to see Gohan standing in front of him, one hand rubbing bashfully at the back of his head. "Sorry about that. I should've been more careful."

"No, it's okay. Really." Dende assured, bending down to retrieve his staff; he made a mental note to always step away from the edge of the Lookout if he thought he saw something coming.

Gohan scanned the area, dark brows drawn together in apparent confusion. "Piccolo-san not here today?"

"No, he's been gone since early this morning," Popo supplied, himself just getting up; he too had been knocked to the ground by the demi-saiyan's less-than-subtle arrival. "He mentioned something having to do with a waterfall . . ."

"Meditating, most likely." Gohan nodded in understanding. "He always has liked to do that near waterfalls. Oh well; I really came to see you, anyway, Dende."

"Yes. What is it?" Dende asked, eager for a distraction from his inadequacies as Earth's Guardian.

"I feel kind of stupid for asking, and I hate to bother you . . ." Gohan continued almost shyly. He knelt down, rolled up a pant leg, and unwound a band of white cloth from his newly-exposed calf. " . . . But could you take a look at this?"

"Well, of course. I don't mind." Dende stepped over to his friend, and knelt down to his level. On Gohan's leg, there were four parallel scratch marks, not terribly deep, but enough so that they must have been rather painful when they'd been fresh. In all, it wasn't a major wound . . .

"I know it doesn't look like much," Gohan said, as if reading his thoughts. "And I didn't think anything of it, either, at first. But this injury is four days old – and there's no healing."

Dende started. None? That was most strange . . . "How odd. I can't imagine why that would be . . . But I can take care of it for you, at least."

He placed his four-fingered hand over the wound, and summoned his power, feeling its warmth spread through his arm, and his palm until it seeped into Gohan's calf. Once, when Guru – may his soul eternally dwell in peace – had first awakened within him this power, he had feared it. Raw and elemental, it had seemed so out of place in a quiet, reserved person such as he. Yet surprisingly, he'd been quick to tame it, to direct its flow, and while he didn't consider himself an expert he was proud of his abilities. He enjoyed being able to help others.

But he frowned suddenly, as something that should have been impossible happened. The scratches had closed, thick white scar tissue forming over them . . . but that was all. No matter how much power and concentration he poured into it, he could not heal them any further.

Disturbed, Dende pulled his hand away, a band of sweat on his forehead. "I . . . I don't understand . . ."

Gohan leaned over to inspect the wound, and when he spoke, his voice was soft with disbelief. "That . . . can't be possible . . ."

Dende merely continued to stare in shock. How could he have failed at healing such a minor injury? His first healings had been complete successes, and his patients had been near death. Was he becoming inadequate here, too?

"If you don't mind," Popo interjected, much to Dende's surprise, "might I ask what injured you, Gohan?"

Gohan looked up. "I have no idea; I didn't see a thing," he responded, shaking his head. But then he paused, his expression thoughtful. "Although . . . Goten mentioned some strange creature with grey skin and glowing eyes . . ."

If Dende had waited another second to look at his assistant, he would have missed it: a paling of Popo's black skin. Perhaps he knew something?

"Um . . ." Gohan began in obvious discomfiture, drawing Dende's attention back to him. "I'm really sorry, but I think I have to go. I left Goten at the Briefs', and . . ." he trailed off and stood. "Thanks anyway, for all your help. See you guys later."

With that, the demi-saiyan leapt into the air, flying off surrounded by a nimbus of white fire.

Dende rose to his feet, eyes on the rapidly vanishing ki trail. "The change is harmful, isn't it, Popo-san?"

The answer came a moment later, both what he had expected and had hoped not to hear.

"Yes, Dende-sama. I am afraid that it is."

* * *


	3. BOOK ONE, CHAPTER THREE

_**Inversion of Shadows **_

**BOOK ONE, CHAPTER THREE **

Hmm.

He paused, lowered his arm, straightened. His natural frown further turned down the corners of his mouth, nearly to his narrow chin, in mounting irritation and suspicion. Yes, something was most certainly amiss.

He'd noted the difference earlier, of course – after all, he was the Saiyajin no Ouji, not some unobservant novice – but he'd dismissed it, rationalized it as perhaps a side-effect of something else; the other day, he'd been starving enough to eat his woman's cooking and he still wasn't sure what sort of toxic ingredients she mixed into her excuses for food. It would not have been the first time that the foul concoctions had affected his training . . .

But no. Much as he would prefer to blame the woman for this, he knew that, this time, she had nothing to do with it.

Irritably, he pressed the button to shut off the increased gravity; his body automatically adjusted to the lower pressure as it moved from two hundred times normal to its natural level. He narrowed his eyes as they caught sight of the still-fresh scratches on his arm.

Them. They were to blame, he was sure of it.

The timing could not have been a coincidence. Ever since that annoying creature had managed to inflict this wound upon him, he was having increasing difficulty summoning his power. Though it had started slowly, his power ceiling had become noticeably lower. He could still transform into a Super Saiyajin, but how long that would last looked to be debatable now.

The door to the gravity chamber hissed as it opened and a short staircase extended from its hidden compartment. He had scarcely reached the ground when a young voice assaulted his ears.

"Find anything, yet?" Trunks' words echoed through the air.

"Trunks, you gotsta be quiet! You're gonna scare it!" another voice shouted back in complete opposition to its own command. Kakarott's younger brat.

The two were probably playing some pointless game, as they tended to do whenever they didn't spar. It was certainly none of his concern. He ignored the children and proceeded toward the dwelling.

"What did ya say it looked like, again?"

"I told ya twice! It's grey, gots lotsa muscles, and big glowin' eyes!"

The description actually brought Vegeta up short. It so well fit the creature that had attacked him as he'd exited the gravity chamber a few days prior. He'd blasted the little beast into oblivion, of course, as annoyed at its managing to wound him as he'd been at himself for not detecting its presence. How would Kakarott's little whelp have seen one?

"Goten, we been lookin' forever! There ain't nothin' here!" Trunks complained.

"Is so!" Kakarott's brat shot back. "Theys is jus' real good at hidin'! Even niichan couldn't find it after it hurt 'im, an' he was doin' that ki-sensin' stuff!"

Ah. So that was it.

Leaving the children to their argument, Vegeta entered the house. So Gohan – he had finally relinquished referring to the boy as "Kakarott's elder brat" – had suffered a similar injury. Probably didn't even realize the side-effects; the foolish boy hadn't trained since the Cell Games and thus would not be aware of the apparent reduction in power.

Well, Vegeta reflected sourly, power was wasted on that kid, anyway. He didn't even _want_ it, and was doing nothing to maintain it. Such strength, far beyond what Vegeta had once thought possible . . . and it went entirely unappreciated by its owner. It would have weakened on its own by now ,anyway, through lack of use. And for this reason, Gohan, despite his numerous faults, would not be stupid enough to think a decrease in his power was out of the ordinary.

The kitchen, or what passed for one, was empty, which suited his tastes. More out of a need for distraction that actual hunger, he snatched an orange from a bowl of fruit sitting at the centre of the table, and devoured it in two bites, not even bothering to peel it first. His eyes watched out the window, at Goten and Trunks. Both boys were running about the yard, poking their heads behind plants, boosting themselves up to peek inside various windows, and employing all sorts of other childish search tactics.

The injury. It was not an isolated incident.

Such was a thought that might disturb a normal man, but never, by anyone's standards, had Vegeta been normal. Rather, he found it somewhat intriguing. Both he and Gohan . . . and the only thing they had in common was that they were two of the most powerful creatures on the planet. Given the effect of the scratches, that made one thing obvious: they'd been specifically targeted. But by what? However much it galled Vegeta, he did not have enough information upon which to act and he would not waste his energy on something so vague.

But answers would be forthcoming. It was just a – brief, he was certain – matter of time.

* * *

Silent as the night that surrounded her, she drifted along a mere few feet above empty streets. While most areas of the city were still wide awake, locations near the outskirts were always quiet at this hour. Those forced to live on the streets, whether by poor choice or hard luck, had by now holed themselves up in the several of the run-down buildings that lined the roadways like a browbeaten honour guard for the dishonourable activities that filled the day.

It was just as well, as far as she was concerned. Her contact with people tended to be somewhat limited and nothing like the poor rabble that would reside here. People in such desperate straits could be dangerous, and though she could handle any of them should they try anything, she preferred not to waste her magic on such tasks; there were far better and more important uses for those talents.

And anyway, the people were not her concern; they were not what had brought her here. Rare were the times she ventured into a city and only the most unusual of circumstances had ever caused her to do so.

The faintest starlight reflected off her crystal ball, which was currently serving its secondary function as her perch. All other illumination was lost, absorbed into the black cloth of her robes and her tall pointed hat, so that even were anyone present, they would not be able to see her face. Allowing her senses to guide her, she floated along a path created by an abnormal energy, searching for its source.

Either fortunately or unfortunately – she wasn't yet sure which – the search was brief. Near an alleyway, the source emerged, though only its eyes, two brightly glowing pools of orange, were plainly visible. From what she could tell, it was merely scavenging for food. Such was probably the case, especially if it was what she was beginning to fear it might be; no other reason than a search for nourishment would bring it to such a place. There were no targets here.

A slight tremble moving through her, she forced herself to keep her composure. She reached down a small hand to touch the cool surface of her crystal ball and cast the tiniest of spells. The orb began to emit a soft, steady white light, which more seemed to magnify the surrounding darkness than anything else, but aided her eyes nonetheless. She had to see it, had to confirm it.

The creature looked up at her, the light having drawn its attention, and she tensed as it assessed her, tried to determine if she were a threat. After a long moment, it grunted, almost in disgust, and turned its searing gaze elsewhere, eventually wandering out of the light's reach.

Softly letting free a deep breath, she allowed the light spell to dissipate. While the creature had been eying her measuringly, she had been doing the same to it, albeit more nervously. What she had seen only served to confirm her suspicions. Only served to render true the stories that her grandmother had related to her centuries ago. Stories that, while she'd never outright disbelieved them, she'd taken with a hint of skepticism.

"From the deepest myth of night, forth through darkness into light . . ." she quoted in a raspy whisper. The first two lines of an ancient poem used to describe an even more ancient threat.

This . . . would certainly warrant a more in-depth investigation. And a look ahead. That much she could do on her own before consulting with the gods on this matter; it would ill do to be less informed upon it than they were, though one was quite new in his position and had not yet developed his mild prescience. She did have her pride to think about, if nothing else. After all, her crystal ball wasn't merely a convenient place to rest her behind; she was a fortune-teller, the best in the business for well over three hundred years, and was not about to lose face if she could avoid it.

Normally, she would have waited to return home before performing a reading, but there was an urgency to the air, a sense that this should not be delayed. And so she clumsily climbed off the ball, cursing the black folds of her robes for tripping up her short legs. Now firmly standing upon the ground, she thrust out her palms toward the floating sphere, sleeves jerking away from her wrists at the swift movement. She wove her hands in complex patterns and muttered well-practised words, building the framework of magical energy for a look into the future. The crystal ball shivered for a few seconds in response before it steadied, and the once-reflective surface became a cage of sorts for an image all its own.

Her hands and lips stopped, the spell complete. Intently, she stared at the image before her, memorizing, analyzing every detail. Despite what she saw, she did not shiver with dread; several times, she had foreseen apocalyptic scenes such as this and they rarely managed to come to pass. And one of them, which before had been certain to come true, had changed when a survivor of such a future travelled back in time to deliver a warning . . .

Nonetheless, it was a definite cause for concern. And for action.

A sharp swipe of her hand, and the vision dropped out of existence. Strenuously, she pulled herself back up onto her crystal ball, taking off as soon as she was seated comfortably, just as the first tiny spark of day touched upon the horizon.

* * *

It was of an ancient race – one of several ancient races, to be more precise. Even the oldest of the beings on the planets they reclaimed only knew them from old, obscure stories. Or at least, that was what it had been told; it had never thought of such things as important, so they rarely crossed its mind. Its only concern was to discover and disable targets, the powerful beings that may otherwise have posed a significant threat to its brethren. An important task, one it and its companions had always performed swiftly and efficiently.

But on this mission, it had been anything but swift and efficient. Oh, to be sure, it had disabled the larger, more formidable creature with its usual precision, yet the other one . . .

He was nearby – the little one, the one that was so baffling. It could feel the child's power: bright, alive, pulsating. Enough so that, in all likelihood, things would be safer were it incapacitated as well. It had been about to do so when the more formidable one had appeared, and even after that one had been wounded, neither it nor its companions had dared make a move; the venom did not take immediate effect, and so they would easily have been destroyed.

But the little one was alone now, had no protector. This was a prime opportunity to strike.

And so it moved carefully, low to the ground, ensuring that its feet touched soft earth rather than dry, crumbly leaves, or easily snapped twigs. Stealth was a natural ability of its kind and had to be if they were to successfully carry out their purpose; they were low-powered and could never hope to stand up to their targets in battle.

There the child was, back to it, apparently picking something off a tall, leafy plant. As he did so, he made a loud humming noise, choppy, yet somewhat musical. He was quite clearly oblivious to the danger that he was in. Prime opportunity to strike, a better chance unlikely to present itself.

It must have made a sound, though, rustled through a bush, for the child turned to face it. His head tilted to one side, and his face wrinkled as though in thought for a moment, before breaking out into a grin.

"Hey, it's you, ain't it?" the child chirped. "I been lookin' for ya all week! Where ya been?"

Uncertain of how to react, it froze. It didn't understand how it could have let him detect its presence; even among its own kind, it had been one of the stealthiest. How had it blundered so? The little one stepped forward, and so it tensed, baring its teeth, readying its front foot to deliver a clean swipe.

But the little one stopped, and frowned, somehow looking hurt. "Ain't no reason to look so mean, ya know. I ain't gonna hurt you." He proffered his hand, in which rested a number of small, somewhat misshapen purple spheres. "I jus' wanted to share these berries that I picked up for a snack."

It tensed further. This was why the child was so bewildering; he had the potential power to be a threat, yet he didn't act that way. Instead, he made these gentle, almost friendly gestures, making it wonder whether a threat was actually present. No one had ever been friendly to it before, most especially a prospective target; the child was a paradox, and it had no idea how to deal with paradoxes.

"C'mon, jus' take 'em," he urged, sticking his hand out further. "Theys is real yummy. See?" He dipped his free hand into the front of the fitted cloth that he wore, pulled out more spheres, and shoved them into his mouth. He chewed them thoroughly, then swallowed, the grin back on his face. "Theys is good. Try 'em."

It allowed itself to relax, just slightly. Having eaten the spheres didn't appear to be harming the child, so this didn't seem like a trap. And though it had been able to sustain itself on the various creatures that inhabited these woods, it was a touch hungry at the moment. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea to take him up on his offer . . .

Slowly, it stepped forward, ever wary lest the child make an aggressive move at the last second. It carefully opened its mouth, the child's hand fitting into it quite easily. Its sharp teeth grazed lightly over his palm as it took the food; he giggled in response.

"See? I told you theys was good." He reached into the fitted cloth again, and pulled out yet more. "Here, ya want s'more? I gots lots."

Time was a nebulous concept to it, but it was sure that quite a bit passed while it sat in the woods, sharing a meal with a child that was supposed to have been a target. But surely something so accommodating could not be dangerous; it even caught itself hoping that he would not be destroyed by its betters when they inevitably arrived. Its betters never treated it so decently; indeed, none of the treatment it had received had held the slightest trace of respect or kindness.

It could grow to quite like this child.

"Goten-chan? Where are you? It's time to come in, sweetie!" called out a high voice, offensive to its ears.

The child glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the voice before turning back, face puckered in disappointment. "Uh, oh. That's Mama callin'. I gotsta go, or I'll get in trouble." He climbed to his feet, licking purple juice off his fingers. "But don't go too far, okay? Maybe tomorrow we can play s'more. Bye, bye!"

After giving a little wave, the child darted off through the woods. Gone for the day, it supposed. It really had no idea what his words meant; so many planets, each with their own languages . . . all so complicated that they weren't worth bothering with. But the words did sound friendly.

A shame that, once its betters arrived – which it knew to be in the near future – the one who had spoken them would probably be dead.

* * *

Duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Yamucha waved a lighthearted goodbye to his teammates as he exited the locker room. He didn't really need that much practice to return to mid-season form, but always liked to play the full spring training schedule anyway. His teammates, by and large, were a good group of guys and many of them were his friends; it was fun to hang around with them, even though baseball itself was losing some of that quality. For the past couple of weeks, he'd begun to seriously consider retirement at the end of the season. Playing had been enjoyable, but he felt that it was just about time for him to move on.

"Hi, Yamucha! You were great out there today!" squealed a high-pitched voice that he knew quite well. A small bluish creature, almost looking like a strange cross between a cat and a mouse – though the appearance did favour the feline persuasion – floated out at an excited pace, a Titans cap on her tiny head.

Yamucha chuckled. He was a popular player, but his biggest fan and supporter would always be his oldest friend. "Ah, Puar, you know that's nothin'. C'mon, let's go grab some dinner."

Puar took up her customary position on his left shoulder. "Right. And it's my turn to pick the restaurant, so you know where we're going."

Sighing in feigned exasperation, Yamucha shook his head. "You never get tired of that place, do you?" He really was not surprised; back when they'd been desert bandits, they'd been forced to eat whatever they could find or steal, otherwise facing starvation, but once they had become accustomed to city life, to say nothing of living off the salary of a professional baseball player, Puar had revealed her finicky nature. Once she found something she liked, she stuck with it.

The air outside the ballpark was brisk, early evening breeze carrying a slight chill of the recently-ended winter, and Puar curled up a little to shield herself from it. Pale grey clouds shrouded the sky from view, making it darker than it should have been for this hour; in all likelihood, a rainstorm would overtake the city before the night was through, Yamucha could tell from the scent of the air.

With the fact that the ballpark was quite understandably located in one of the city's busiest areas, Yamucha opted as usual to wait some distance before decapsulating his car; traffic jams around here were the worst. He walked down the street with a long, easy stride, returning the occasional wave from a passerby with a brief nod and a smile. One of the perks of his status; he rather enjoyed the attention.

"You sure you want to go there again?" he asked as usual, eyes flicking up to his tiny companion. "I think I'm better known there than I am at the ballpark!"

"Of course I'm sure!" Puar shot back playfully, continuing their accustomed post-game, pre-dinner conversation. "And you sure don't mind being noticed, so don't try pulling that one!"

Before long, they reached one of the quieter downtown streets, and Yamucha stopped to pull out his capsule car. But his hand had just grasped it when a niggling sensation in the back of his mind made him pause, and he frowned slightly.

Puar quickly picked up his discomfort. "Yamucha? What's the matter?"

He didn't answer immediately, rather concentrating on the feeling. Nothing much was there; it was just barely noticeable, perhaps something he would have picked up on more easily a few years ago, when he was a little less removed from combat. It was definitely a sense of a living creature, but he hesitated to define it as ki; something about it was seriously off.

"Yamucha?" Puar repeated, concern etched in her voice.

His eyes narrowed determinedly as he dropped his duffle bag, and pried his companion off his shoulder. "Stay here."

He bolted down the street in the direction in which his senses were guiding him. While flying would naturally have been much quicker, he was not quite concerned enough to do so when so many people were about. A few passers by gave him an odd glance, but he paid no mind to them.

Yamucha slowed his pace as he grew closer, the sense of cautiousness from his warrior days automatically taking control of his body. And in addition to that sense of cautiousness, he was willing to admit to a bit of fear; the last time he'd been investigating a potential threat in a city, he'd ended up with a hand through his stomach and pretty near died. Something like that wasn't easy to forget.

It took him a few seconds to realize that he had actually halted completely, as though some corner of his mind had conjured an invisible wall in front of him. His fear was gaining the advantage; whatever was out there was more powerful than he was. What wasn't, these days?

A scream ripped through the air, shattered his mental wall, and Yamucha charged forth with a new resolve. He bowled over anyone who stood in his path, not willing to take the extra time necessary to weave around them. More cries rang out, mostly those of shock, but also a few of pain. These sounds further energized his legs, and in another minute, the source of the sounds was in sight.

He stopped dead.

Standing on the sidewalk, amid several prone bodies, was one of the oddest creatures he'd ever seen in his life – and he had seen some pretty strange stuff. It was ridiculously tall, reaching a height that easily dwarfed that of Tenshinhan, or even Piccolo. Despite its height, it was not bulky, though nor was it slender. A sickly yellow tone denoted its skin . . .

Involuntarily, Yamucha raised his ki; the strange creature turned its attention toward him, obviously having detected the increase, and he silently cursed himself for his slip of control. He'd given up the whole fighting gig a few years back, since he had just felt useless anyway, so a serious battle was something that he was rather ill-equipped to handle right now.

_What in the world was I thinking?_ he chastised himself briefly. That thought was the only one which had time enough to pass through is head before the creature lunged at him.

The blow came sooner than he expected – the creature was quick for its size and had an even longer reach than he had anticipated. Yamucha moved his head enough to avoid being knocked out, but pain exploded through his cheek, staggering him. On a subconscious impulse, he allowed himself to fall; another punch sailed over him, just clipping the tips of his hair.

Its legs were far out of his reach, so rather than try to sweep them out from under his attacker, he hastily climbed to his knees and launched his fist forward, all of his body weight behind it, straight into the creature's gut. The thing stumbled a little, a hoarse gurgling sound escaping its lips, but recovered more quickly than Yamucha did and shot its leg out, catching him in the chest and sending him flying backward into the wall of a nearby building.

Yamucha felt the hard stone at his back partially give way around his body until he was half embedded in it. His breath hissed between his teeth from the pain in his chest and back, though he managed to open his tightly-shut eyes so that he might better anticipate the next assault. The creature did not seem to be terribly concerned about him – not that he blamed the thing; he hadn't exactly made a spectacular first impression, after all – and advanced toward him at a casual pace; its arms, he noted, hung down to just past its knees. Well, that explained the longer reach.

With great effort, Yamucha began pulling himself out of his rocky confines. First one arm, then the other . . . Maybe if he freed himself quickly enough, he might be able to get the jump on that . . . whatever-it-was. Finally, he dropped to his knees on the sidewalk, and, wasting no more time, cupped his hands at his side. The creature could take a punch, but now it was time to see what it could do against a ki attack.

"Ka . . . me . . . ha . . ." he whispered slowly, channelling ki though his palms, a solid ball of brightly flickering power forming between them. He could have released it at any time, but this creature outpowered him and he had to put enough into this shot to make it count.

As it turned out, that constituted poor judgement.

Before he could finish gathering enough strength, the creature's eyes narrowed dangerously, and it spit out a stream of saliva at him. Almost feeling foolish, but perfectly willing to trust his instincts, Yamucha abandoned his attack plan and rolled out of the way. He hurriedly stood, and heard a bubbling hiss at his feet; he glanced down in surprise to see that his shoe was quickly being eaten away, and he pried it off with his other foot before any of his flesh could suffer the same fate. Beside him, a hole had been burned into the sidewalk, fumes still rising into the air.

"Whoa!" he breathed. "What'd this thing have to drink – a bottle of acid?"

He had no time to ponder the issue, instead adopting a defensive posture. His display of power may have given the creature pause, though, as it came forward with more caution that it had demonstrated earlier. Yamucha tightened his stance as it approached –

A huge form suddenly charged out from an alley, roaring ferociously as it tackled the creature, knocking it to the ground. Yamucha blinked in surprise at this new arrival: an immense blue-grey bear. The sight struck him as bizarre for a few seconds before his brain made the proper connections. "Puar! Get away from that thing!"

And indeed it was Puar, who had no doubt decided that he was in dire need of assistance and of course offered her own. But this would be far too much for her; she'd only been able to knock the creature over due to a mixture of the element of surprise and the added weight of her current form. Shapeshifting altered only the body, not the shapeshifter's power.

Half a moment was all it took for the creature to throw her off; Puar sailed backward, landing hard. Yamucha saw that the creature was preparing to spit out more of that corrosive substance, and he readied a ki blast – nothing major; there wasn't time for that – but one that he hoped would create a distraction.

The blast flared out from his palms just as a cloud of yellow smoke puffed out in front of the creature. The attack slammed into its target with perfect accuracy, between the shoulder blades, and the creature stiffened, growled in pain before whipping back to him. It snarled viciously, and leapt.

But Yamucha was already moving, using a speed he'd long forgotten; he deftly evaded the charge and raced over to Puar. He allowed himself the most cursory examination of her condition, seeing that she was shell-shocked but apparently uninjured, before hurriedly scooping her up and using his ki to propel them both to the top of a nearby building. Once there, he suppressed his power and stared over the edge to check if they'd been seen; the creature was standing in the middle of the street, looking around as though lost.

"Whew!" Yamucha sighed, relieved. He gazed down at the small form he held in his arms. "Hey, Puar. You okay?"

Puar wriggled out of his grasp. Her ears were pinned back and her tail was curling and writhing like a nervous snake. "Y . . . yeah. I changed back before that . . . thing could hit me again. Are you all right, Yamucha?"

"I'll live." His body still ached all over, and now that there was nothing to distract him, he could feel a grinding in his chest: a broken rib, maybe two. He was lucky, really; that thing could easily have killed him. He frowned at his companion. "I told you to stay back."

Puar's tail stiffened, and she scrunched her tiny features into an expression of indignance. "I would not! Don't be running off into trouble all alone and expect me to stand by! You obviously needed some help out there!"

Defeated, Yamucha shook his head. There was little use in trying to argue with her.

"What is that thing, Yamucha?" Puar's voice had softened and dropped. He noted that she was staring down at the scene below, eyes thoughtful.

"I dunno," he answered truthfully. "And I'm not sure I want to."

The distant blaring of sirens caught his ears, from several directions. Police cars. Some of the fleeing citizens had doubtless called the authorities and reported the situation. The noises apparently irritated the creature, whose movements had gone from confused to agitated.

A sick feeling spreading in his gut, though not from his injuries, Yamucha turned his head away. "C'mon, Puar. We oughtta get outta here while it's distracted."

Puar eyed him with concern, but said nothing and merely climbed onto his shoulder. Yamucha took off, flying at a slow pace so as to not make his power too blatantly detectable. Behind them were the noises of gunfire and screams. Yeah, people were dying out there, but there was nothing he could do to stop it, and he'd only get killed himself if he tried. Did thinking that way make him a coward? In many eyes, including his own, he would judge that it did. But his pride had been stomped on for years until it was as thin as a sheet of tracing paper. Still present, but not nearly as powerful an influence as it had been over him in his younger days.

"Maybe it's not as bad as we think, Yamucha," Puar broke the silence. "Maybe it's just that one monster and one of the others can take care of it, easy."

"Maybe," Yamucha repeated, so softly that he barely heard himself. He was trying unsuccessfully to make himself believe that they could be that lucky. They never were.

* * *


	4. BOOK ONE, CHAPTER FOUR

**_Inversion of Shadows_**

**BOOK ONE, CHAPTER FOUR**

Another turn of the wrench, smooth and masterful of course. Why, she was sure that she'd been using tools since before she could walk, an obvious premonition of her great genius and technical expertise. She had never been all that much like other little girls, playing with dolls and such. Not that she had never done so, but she'd much preferred to take things apart and put them back together or make her own toys, though the family could more than afford to buy them. She had always been the do-it-yourself type.

Across the room, a radio blared music, but Bulma did not find this disturbing in the least. In fact, she actually worked better this way. A lack of any noise as she worked would almost drive her crazy. Not that such a thing made working on the weekends any easier, since Trunks usually did a great deal more than make noise when he was off from school. But it was Bulma's own fault for making her projects so irresistibly fascinating that she could not leave them alone.

Take the one she was working on at the moment for example. The concept seemed simple enough: a way in which individual air molecules could be manipulated and placed as desired. Perhaps, this technology could be used for things like the betterment of acoustics in theatres and such . . .

A rumble echoed through the room, drowning out even the radio for its few seconds of existence. Though it had not exactly surprised her, Bulma frowned in irritation. Then again, maybe the technology should be used as an improved sound-proofing agent.

Naturally, Bulma had long ago soundproofed the gravity chamber, ever since she'd discovered how loud Vegeta's training could get. He'd trained all day and all night back then, and she was not about to let the inconsiderate jerk ruin her required eight hours.

Still, the occasional extraordinarily loud noise would pierce through the walls. And though the thing didn't blow up as often as it used to – Vegeta had learned to be more careful, at least – ki blasts would blow holes through the thick materials every now and then. Sometimes they were accidental, but Bulma was sure that ninety-five percent of the time Vegeta did that just to annoy her.

Dismissively, Bulma shook her head and returned to her work. It was about time for another test run, anyway. She set the wrench absently into her toolbox, and flicked a few switches. The machine hummed to life, vibrating slightly under her hand. For just a second, she smiled; her inventions always made her feel powerful, a sensation she was sure that her warrior friends experienced when they used their ki powers.

She winced as a spark flew off of the console and toward her face. Inwardly, she cursed – but thanked her common sense that she was wearing goggles to protect her eyes. More sparks flew, however, as the humming got louder and there was no other choice but to turn off the machine.

With an irritated sigh, she flicked the switches back to their previous positions. Things hadn't been going right from the start with this stupid thing. It took a moment for it to shut down and several more for it to cool off. As soon as this was the case she knelt down beside the console and slid her goggles on top of her head. Without even looking, she reached behind her for her toolbox and plucked out a screwdriver on the first try; she knew her toolbox almost as well as she knew herself and thus no search time was required.

Deftly, she removed the side panel and in her irritation dumped it unceremoniously onto the floor. She was thankful of the sun pouring in through the window at precisely the right angle; it would have been most vexing were she to have needed a flashlight. She bent in for a closer look at the wiring and the connections . . .

"Oh, please. Give me a break," she muttered. It was the same circuit that had overloaded the last time. Not to mention the time before that. She had been continually repairing and replacing this circuit and it refused to bow to her will as the queen of technology. For all that she was worth, Bulma could not figure out what the problem was. She'd never even gotten this thing anywhere near full blast.

Grumbling some more about the recent disobedience of her inventions, she removed the offending circuit, lifting it to her face to examine it more critically. Her mechanic's eye caught the scorch marks marring the surface. There would be no repairing this one; yet another replacement was in order.

And as if this was not bad enough, the blaring music from her radio stopped, bringing instead the appropriately annoying sound of a newscaster. "We apologize for the interruption of you regular programming. This just in: the downtown area of West Capitol suffered heavy damage last evening. We've yet to receive any reports on casualties, but preliminary sources indicate –"

Bulma switched off the radio. Normally, she would have paid some heed to a report of this nature, but she just wasn't in the mood for it right now. She was having enough problems with her own inventions and didn't need something from the outside world to give her extra ones to deal with. If it was really that important, then she could just hear about it when she was in a better mood.

Still, she conceded as she reattached the console's side panel and placed her screwdriver back into the toolbox, Bulma could not deny that she was a bit curious. It wasn't as if she wasn't an adventurous person; she craved adventure, in fact, probably more than was healthy. And the beginning of the report had tweaked those tendencies a bit.

It could be any number of things. A chemical plant explosion, a terrorist attack . . . There was even another possibility that intrigued her as much as it frightened her. The world, despite being basically safe, was still not necessarily absent of any abnormally dangerous threats; there was a certain jinzouningen out there that could be causing some havoc.

Bulma knew that it would not be Juuhachi, for she had recently settled down in marriage with Kuririn. Her life wasn't any more a secret than what she made it now – by nature she was a secretive person, but Bulma respected a girl's right to her privacy. Besides, it just didn't seem like the kind of thing that the blonde woman would do these days. While Bulma would not claim to know her very well, she knew enough for that much.

But they never had figured out what happened to her brother. The only thing that was certain was that he had been revived by the Dragonballs along with all others who had been killed by Cell four years ago. No one had seen him since – well, Juuhachi might have before she settled down, but if so she never said anything about it – and looking for him wasn't easy. He was, after all, a jinzouningen and there was no ki for her warrior friends to sense.

Not that he had caused any trouble in the past few years as far as she knew, but that didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't have started now. Whether out of some perceived provocation or just for kicks she didn't know. But it was a fascinating concept.

She needed a distraction from this project. It was giving her nothing but frustration, and a change of pace – say, studying a jinzouningen, one that wasn't a full robot – would be most welcome indeed. She just had to hope that he wouldn't be taken care of by one of the others before she got her hands on him.

For the first time in hours, Bulma smiled. If she wanted this, then she was going to have to do it herself. Somewhere in her father's laboratory, the blueprints for Juunana were still stored – assuming that the notoriously absent-minded man hadn't thrown them away accidentally. While doubtless they would not contain the very specific data that she needed, she should be able to extrapolate enough information to create a locator device. And she could always construct a new shut-down remote; the blueprints for that were safely stored within her own head.

Bulma barely refrained from rubbing her hands together in glee. Oh, yes, she was getting excited about this one. A little quest of sorts, just like the old days. In truth, she had grown to kind of miss them. Just a quick stop to her room for a shower and a change of clothes, and she would be on her way down to her father's laboratory to root around for those old blueprints.

* * *

Nothing moved in this forest without his being aware of it. Even the tiniest bird, the most inconspicuous insect failed to escape his notice. He needed none of his eyes to detect them – in a long-ago battle, a tournament match in fact, he had been told that he relied upon his eyes too much. Despite his stubborn nature, he was not one to ignore constructive criticism when it was offered. Especially when it came to fighting technique. Over the years, he had come to rely far less on his sight and more intently upon his other senses, from hearing to ki.

And in fact his eyes – all three of them – were closed to the world. Some people were able to meditate with them open, but there were fewer distractions this way. Sight could be a curse sometimes and he needed none of that during meditation.

It was a daily activity for him, one at which he typically spent about two hours in between more physically rigorous training. Always training, even though there were no opponents for him to fight. And it wasn't really about beating someone, anyway. The reason lay in being superior to his own self; he wanted to know just what his limits really were, how far he could really go before his ability was complete.

The breeze that grazed his skin was chilly, unsurprising for how far north he lived. He heard even the slightest ruffling of leaves on the trees, smelled the animals scurrying for some form of cover from predators. And not far off his mind, with its marginally psychic tendencies, detected his housemate and friend of decades. He hadn't started off with any psychic abilities, but when one lived with someone who used them as readily as he breathed it was only natural to pick up a little bit of it. No one was completely absent of the talent; it was just that the vast majority never learned how to use it.

Another presence briefly touched this talent, but was gone quickly, almost as soon as it came. Nonetheless, Tenshinhan frowned. The nearest town was over a hundred miles to the southeast and thus he should have been able to detect no other mental presences. He would have passed it off as just a paranoid mistake on his part, but the presence had been too real. It wasn't as though he had seen some imaginary shadow out of the corner of his eye. The psychic sense was not as easily fooled as the eye.

Someone or something had invaded this territory.

Odd though this was, it hardly indicated anything dangerous. Not for sure, at least. And regardless of whether it posed a threat or not, Tenshinhan could not let a subject such as this lie without confirmation.

Smoothly, he raised himself out of his meditative posture to stand at his considerable full height. All three eyes were open now, scanning for the direction in which he had briefly detected that presence. When they met with no luck, he refocused his mild psychic energy to search for it again. He strained a little harder this time, sweat pooling just under his central eye and was able to get a slight taste of the presence once again. It was all that he needed.

He raised himself into the air and headed off to investigate.

* * *

While Tenshinhan may have had a difficult time holding on to the new mental presence, his housemate certainly did not. It was part of the curse of being so well-gifted and trained in the psychic arts that he could not lose it even though he might want to. And in this particular case, Chaozu doubted that he would mind that very much.

He sat propped against the cupboards below the kitchen sink, eyes squeezed shut and hand pressed to his forehead. The headache had come upon him quite suddenly when he had just been preparing to fix lunch and was so intense that he had no choice but to sit and attempt to make it subside.

Headaches were not really an uncommon thing for a psychic; using all of that mind power could hurt sometimes, but ones of this intensity were rare. In fact, the only time that he ever got these were the times when he was in close proximity to another psychic of some ability. It didn't take a genius to figure out the situation.

Being a powerful psychic was a rare thing these days. In the past, it was far more common – people recognized the abilities as true and viable. But in this modern age people thought of them as a delusion at best and a hoax at worst. Very few regarded them as legitimate anymore and thus the art had been slowly dying away for some time now. That limited the number of probable suspects.

Chaozu's first impulse had been that it was the Crane Master, but he shoved that aside as soon as it occurred to him. Not only would he have been able to distinguish that mental presence quite readily, but the man had been dead for nearly fifteen years. He and Tenshinhan had seen to that.

He knew of a few other powerful ones and this didn't match them at all. In fact, there was a distinct difference, such a dissimilar brainwave pattern to a human being. Certainly not every sentient creature or psychic was a human, but the pattern did not touch any familiarity at all within his mind.

It was unnerving to say the least.

And something else that was unnerving was that he could sense Tenshinhan heading in its direction. Apparently his friend had detected this presence as well and had decided to investigate it. While he was fairly certain that Tenshinhan could handle himself, this wasn't the type of thing that Chaozu could help worrying about. A psychic could be a very dangerous opponent and in that regard it was usually best to fight fire with fire.

It took some effort, but Chaozu climbed to his feet, taking his hand away from his forehead. From long habit he levitated without even thinking. Theoretically he could lend a hand without leaving the house; he did have powers with this kind of range. But there were certain attacks that could only be performed at a much closer proximity – not necessarily attacks that he enjoyed using, but ones that might be needed nonetheless.

Chaozu didn't waste any time floating through the house to get to the front door. Instead, he merely drifted up to the window above the sink and pried it open with ease. The window wasn't large, and most people wouldn't be able to fit through it, but he was perpetually about the size of a typical three year old and it wasn't a squeeze for him at all.

The fresh air helped his headache a bit – a very welcome blessing considering that he would be getting closer to the presence than was healthy for him. Though he could hope that he had the same effect upon the other psychic. It would put them on more even grounds.

He took to the sky without hesitation, ready to offer whatever aid he could to his closest friend.

* * *

Though he could no longer detect it psychically, Tenshinhan could now clearly sense a ki signature – several of them in fact. At least he assumed that they were ki signatures; something about them didn't feel right. Perhaps this was more of a threat than what he had previously thought.

A few of the ki signatures suddenly vanished, and this caused him to frown. Either whatever was out there had attacked and killed some of their own – which he doubted – or some of them knew how to hide themselves from his senses. Which would mean that they knew he was coming.

Tenshinhan had once trained to be an assassin, in the arts of stealth and surprise. It was a tactic that he frowned upon now and thus did not employ. But there was a difference between using an assassin's stealth and surprising the enemy honestly. The latter was something that he would still do, but in this case the option had been taken away from him.

Not that rushing headlong into battle was his style either. What he needed to do was get a feel for whatever was out there and then devise the way to handle it. If he discovered that the force was hostile, then he had no problem with joining battle. If he found otherwise, then perhaps he could convince it to leave.

But the decision was abruptly taken out of his hands.

A sudden, stabbing pain thrust into his chest, though there was no opponent next to him that could have made such a strike. It had simply come out of nowhere and while it had at first been localized directly over his heart, it spread quickly through the rest of his upper body in dull, parallel waves.

By the time that he realized that he was falling, it was too late for him to do anything about it. He crashed down through the trees, even thick branches snapping off like twigs against his weight. His back slammed hard into the ground, arched over the several branches that he had taken down with him, and leaves drifted down onto his body like spectacularly out of place green confetti.

The shock did not last long, and within seconds Tenshinhan rolled himself onto his stomach and then pushed himself onto his feet. Quite suddenly, he realized that the stabbing pain in his chest was gone. Not the slightest hint of it remained – something that worked against the theory that it had naturally subsided. It seemed as if it had been some type of illusion, or . . .

Yes, that was another possibility. If whatever was here had abilities such as that, then he would do well to be cautious and keep those particular defences primed. He remembered attacks like that all too well.

He darted his gaze about, searching for anything at all that looked out of place. Aside from the mess that he had created with his fall, he found nothing. But for the assault laid upon him he would have believed that he was alone here. However, he knew that this was impossible; that attack was a short range one.

A flicker of movement caught his eye.

Tenshinhan fired a thin beam of ki in the direction of the movement, hoping to flush out whatever had caused it. For a second, he thought that he might have simply been overly paranoid and that it was just a forest animal, but he got another hint of one of the ki signatures that was not.

And flush out the creature he did – in fact, he flushed out several. All of them looked more or less the same. Low to the ground, grey-skinned, compact musculature . . . They certainly didn't look like anything that he had ever seen before. Rather, they looked like demons. All the more reason to take care of them; a quick check to his senses told him that they were not particularly powerful.

But in the next instant, he realized that this did not matter at all. How it happened, he was not sure as he had beefed up his psychic defences. Nevertheless, he found himself almost totally paralyzed; the only motion that he could manage was a slight twitch in his arms and face.

Had he been able to, Tenshinhan would have frowned darkly. It was most unfortunate, after all, to be paralyzed when surrounded by the enemy.

* * *

That had been a close call.

Were he free to do so, he would have wiped the sweat off his forehead; it was starting to drip into his eyes, which was most irritating. Unfortunately, he needed his hands for something that was currently more important.

This creature was a strong one, a definite target that they had stumbled upon purely by coincidence; it happened to be near the point where he had opened up the gateway. Lucky, perhaps, in that they did not have to cast a wide net to find a target but not in the sense of being prepared for an assault.

Opening gateways required quite a bit of energy and he had only just let it go when he and the others had detected a strong power approaching them. With the others so weak in comparison to the target – they always were, though in terms of power he was even worse off – he had no choice but to quickly refocus the energy.

Had he not been so drained from the sudden change, his attack may well have been able to kill the target; as it was, he had been unable to get it up to its full potential. And effecting the paralysis had been most difficult as well, for this target obviously knew something of how to defend himself against a psychic attack.

But he had managed it, and now the others were closing in to perform their duty. All that he had to do was hold him for a few minutes more –

Another presence suddenly intruded upon his mind, almost breaking his concentration. Dully, his head began to throb. Ungh. No doubt about it that another psychic had intruded upon the battle – a strong one, or he would not be suffering the beginnings of a headache.

But as he quickly found out, a headache was going to be the least of his problems.

* * *


	5. BOOK ONE, CHAPTER FIVE

_**Inversion of Shadows**  
_**BOOK ONE, CHAPTER FIVE**

Chaozu kept himself perched upon a treetop, where he would be away from the coming melee yet still able to see it. His hands were outstretched, eyes partially closed and his mind was focused upon the one presence there that he could not see – by far the most dangerous one.

It was an attack that he didn't particularly like to use, but in this situation he felt like he had little other option. The strike had to be a threatening enough one that the psychic binding Tenshinhan would be forced to abandon the paralysis to defend itself. Either that, or it would die. In any case, the paralysis would be effectively nullified and Tenshinhan could easily dispose of the other threats.

He jabbed outward with his mind, focus centred upon the unseen creature's heart. A sudden rush of anxiety flowed from the creature's thoughts and for a moment Chaozu thought that he might end up killing this thing after all . . . but there was a sudden push against his power. He didn't do much to strengthen it, since he would prefer not to kill; however, he did pour a little extra effort into the attack to ensure that it was not fully repelled.

This duel would be challenging for him, though he did not expect it to last very long. He had done what he had come here to do and likely all dangers would be absent within a matter of minutes.

* * *

The invisible bonds around his body vanished in a sudden rush, and he needed no time to adjust to his newly rediscovered ability to move. Tenshinhan smoothly dodged to the side as one of the creatures came after him, slamming his elbow into its back as it passed him.

Another came screaming at him from behind, but without even turning to look he shot his leg backward and caught it full in the face. There was no visible tenseness in his body, no outward indication of worry or strain. And none of the other creatures had deigned to attack him.

But that did not change their previous intent. Whatever else they were, they were still a threat and could not be permitted to live.

He sensed the next attack coming for his leg, and swiftly raised it to then smash it down upon the creature's body. Most of the assaults were coming from his back and sides and only the initial one had come from the front. Just as in his old training, these beings relied upon stealth and sneak attacks to be effective. He imagined that this was the only way that they could be if they regularly came into contact with warriors; they used this to even the playing field in regard to their lack of overall strength.

He'd spent too much time at this though. It would only be proper thing to give them a quick send off.

How he was lucky enough to find the remaining ones practically in a line formation, he did not know. The formation was most foolish, for it meant that he could conceivably take them all out with a single strike. So much the better.

He hadn't used this attack in some time – and in fact had rarely used it even back in the earlier stages of his life. He'd been so far above all of his opponents that he had not thought to bother with it, and when he did finally come upon a worthy one, he was forced to use more powerful manoeuvres. But it would do well enough here.

Tenshinhan extended the first two fingers on his hand and thrust them in the direction of the line of creatures. "Dodonpa!"

A thin beam of rose coloured ki shot forth from his fingers, quietly sizzling through the air. And not only through the air; though at least one of the creatures had looked up in time to see the move it had no time to dodge. It, like all the others, was pierced clean through with the beam. With old assassin's instincts Tenshinhan had fired it at such an angle as to catch either the hearts or lungs. The aim proved to be true, as all of the creatures dropped to the ground and that odd sort of non-ki that they had dwindled to nothing.

He was not one to celebrate or gloat over the bodies of fallen enemies and this time was no exception in the least. Especially since there had to be another one out there, the one that had paralyzed him.

Before he could even begin trying to discern its location he heard a sharp, almost childlike cry from above. But that was not the voice of a child despite its high pitch. No, he knew the owner of that voice.

And this knowledge was confirmed as Chaozu dropped into his arms.

* * *

He'd never felt anything so overpowering. In many ways, he could count himself lucky since this was only a push of solid psychic energy against him, not focused into any true attack. An attack at this level of power would have destroyed him unless he'd had his own defenses up on high alert – and even then it probably would have caused quite a bit of damage.

But in other ways, he was not so lucky. The push came upon him so suddenly that he lost his concentration, ending his own assault and he did not have the time to refocus his power into a defense; the backlash hit him with its full force. It came almost like a physical blow, and knocked him from the tree.

However, he did not hit the ground. Rather than the hard, unforgiving forest floor, he found himself cradled in arms that would have been large even were he a normal-sized man. He'd been caught like this on several occasions before and he needed no time to recognize just who held him.

Tenshinhan looked down at him, all three eyes wide in concern. "Chaozu, are you all right? What happened?"

Chaozu lay still for a moment. Though there was no shock from the fall that he had just endured, his head still throbbed from the backlash and it took a little time for it to clear to any noticeable degree. He levitated himself before answering. "I'm okay, Ten-san. It was that other psychic . . ."

The frown that had once been worry on Tenshinhan's face now turned to anger. "Yeah, I knew there was one out there. Thanks for the help, by the way. Can you tell which way it is?"

Relaxing his posture, Chaozu closed his eyes. The presence was not difficult to pick up on, nor was it far from their current position. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again and pointed. "It's that way, and not far."

Before he could even lower his finger Tenshinhan was off following its direction. It was just like him to do something like that – he didn't want to put him at risk. A nice thought, and one that he usually appreciated, but Chaozu did still know how to handle himself and thus took off after his friend.

While he was not as fast as Tenshinhan, his small size enabled him to weave tightly through the trees and he caught up to him in only seconds, just in time to burst into the clearing from which he had detected the other psychic. Only they found no such creature there.

In point of fact, they found nothing at all. Nothing was here but a small plain of grass with the occasional clump of dirt protruding from it. That and a rapidly shrinking cloud of fog.

"What –" Tenshinhan started, but he could not finish the question. Apparently in an effort to make up for that, he asked a different one instead. "Chaozu, are you sure that it was here?"

"Positive." Chaozu nodded, frowning. He had indeed sensed it here, but now his mind told him nothing. "But I don't sense it now. Not anywhere."

Neither of them said anything more. And Chaozu just hung in the air, curiously regarding the remaining wisps of fog.

* * *

His fingers played with one of the larger folds of his clothing, a habit that he'd had since very early on in his life. It was a bad one, as his claws would tear numerous small holes into the fabric. He'd had to replace a lot of clothing because of this, especially since he had come to Earth this time. Being the guardian of a planet was the perfect situation in which a nervous habit could flourish. And it had been more than prolific in recent weeks.

The fact that he knew now that it was a legitimate worry did not help matters . . .

Carefully, he pulled his claw away from where it had snagged his vest. Another hole to go along with the others. He willed himself to dispense with this foolish action and it worked for all of three seconds before his hand was once again chewing away at his garments. Oh, well. Replacing them really was a small matter, one that he could worry about later. The current matter was far more pressing, if only they could get to it.

"Can't we discuss this yet?" he blurted out, then barely resisting the urge to cover his mouth in surprise. This kind of impatience was most rude and rather out of character for him. His nerves, though, were frayed and he at least needed to be able to understand what was happening. "My apologies, Korin-sama. That was rude of me."

The old white cat merely chuckled a bit. "No need to apologize, Dende. And what's with calling me Korin-sama? That's not necessary – you do sort of outrank me, here."

"Ah . . . Yes." It was all that Dende could say in response. He had rather forgotten about that. Such was an easy thing to slip the mind, as he was still very much a child. For a child to outrank an adult was absolute absurdity in Namekseijin culture, and he never quite got used to things being otherwise. Personally, he was pretty uncomfortable with the whole concept.

"And she ought to be here any minute, so I'd advise you to just relax."

Relax? Dende had never been very good at that, especially in the past few years. He'd spent most of his time either in a life-threatening situation or in mind-numbing boredom. Now it was the stress of watching over an entire planet. The word "relax" was not in Dende's vocabulary.

"Hmph."

The little snort of disgust caught his attention and he looked up to see the pudgy form of Yajirobe leaning up against the guardrail of Korin Tower, where they had all gathered for this discussion. While Dende had gained a measure of comfort around Korin, who had aided him a bit in his duties as the Guardian of Earth, he never felt quite right around Yajirobe. The samurai was something of a dark, cynical character and on the whole Dende preferred to be around people who were a little more optimistic – it was a nice contrast to the way that he was most of the time.

"I don't know why you guys're waiting on her anyway," Yajirobe continued in his naturally rough voice. "Since when do you wait for any human to start these little meetings?"

It did seem strange, in a way. After all, the person that they were waiting upon was not one of Earth's pantheon. She was a normal human – well, maybe not really normal, based on what he'd heard of her, but still a human nonetheless. How important was she to this overall matter that they would wait for her?

The air shimmered in front of him for a second and he jumped back in surprise, caught by the hand of Popo before his back hit the guardrail. As the shimmer faded, Dende could make out a small form, even smaller than that of Korin. Its back was to him, so he could not see its face, but it was dressed in sweeping black robes and a matching pointed hat, under which a mass of purplish hair was visible. And to top it off, this person was riding upon a floating sphere of glass.

"Well, I hope that you didn't start without me," the figure said in an almost crotchety voice that Dende had learned to recognize as female. It was something that had taken a while to get used to, as there was none of this division known as "gender" among his people.

"No, but we were starting to wonder when you would get here, Baba," Korin returned easily, with that smile that seemed eternally at home upon his face.

Baba huffed indignantly and turned – or rather her glass sphere turned, taking her along with it – to face Dende. "Hello, Dende. We should have met a long time ago, but I'm sure that we were both very busy."

"Ah . . . Hello," Dende said shyly. He really didn't know how he was supposed to react around this woman. In some weird way, though she had not been noticeably unpleasant, she made him feel uncomfortable. But now that she was here, he could now learn what he so desperately wanted to know. "I suppose . . . since everyone's here now . . . that we should get on with this."

"I suppose we should." Korin lightly tapped his cane on the floor and cleared his throat as if to call for attention. This was quite the absurd action as far as Dende was concerned, since everyone had turned to look at him before he performed it. "So, they're really back."

"Back?" Dende blurted and didn't make any attempt to cover his mouth this time. His surprise was too great to leave any room for even the thought of an apology. And the words kept coming forth from his mouth, a small torrent in one breath for a quiet person such as himself. "What do you mean 'back'? What are you talking about?"

It seemed like nobody heard him. As if he'd never said anything, Baba responded, "I had my doubts at first, but I'm afraid that it's true. Guess that crotchety old grandmother of mine was right."

"You're really sure?"

Baba frowned – well, more deeply, anyway. "Look, I'm just going by an ancient poem here. I may be old, cat, but I'm not quite that old. Last time they were here was way before I was born."

All Dende could do for the moment was listen to the words being tossed back and forth. He would have liked to have participated in the conversation, but being entirely uninformed of the topic of discussion, he opted to just be a good listener and save his questions for the end.

"The description Dende-sama and I got does fit quite well . . ." a new voice cut in, far smoother than that of the other two. Dende looked up to see Popo's face set in a more sombre look than he had ever seen it before, even just after they'd first received that description from Gohan. "And I have seen these before. They are not before my time."

The tower became quiet at this, almost surreal in comparison to the raised voices that had only seconds ago permeated the air. As if on cue, a gust of wind sprang up, whistling eerily in the silence, softly rustling clothes and fur.

"I've served through the watch of many guardians and have seen many things," Popo continued. He seemed to be aware of all of the attention that he was now getting, and lowered his eyes a bit. "And these are one of those things that I had thought and been glad that the world would never see again."

Dende shuddered, but it wasn't from the cold breeze. No, it was the tone that had insinuated its way into Popo's voice – dark and ominous, making the words themselves even more so. This wasn't fair. He was still new at being this planet's guardian. Only recently had he been getting the hang of performing the every day duties; the last thing that he needed was a crisis. During the last one, he was able to sit back and let the warriors handle it. What if he really had to do something this time?

Even though he feared the answer, he simply had to know. He had to be informed of this situation whether he liked it or not. It was his job. "Um . . . Excuse me, but could someone here please tell me what is going on?"

* * *

Kaasan rarely listened to news reports. Often times she would say that her own life was trouble enough and that she spent so much time dealing with it that the troubles of the rest of the world were of no concern to her.

But Gohan knew that she had not turned on the television news on her own decision. She had only done it after a phone call, and from the way she spoke to the other person on the line, he knew that it was from Ojiisan. There was always a little less edge in her tone when she talked to him, probably because he had never worried her almost to the degree of a nervous breakdown like many people in her life did – he hung his head in shame at this thought. After all, he had caused her a great deal of anxiety already in his short lifetime.

Sighing, he lifted his head again and picked a few of the dried dishes out of the sink. He had offered to do the dishes for her tonight, as a penance for not finishing his homework a few days ago. She'd refused at first – he was notorious for accidentally shattering the dishes – but had relented after a few moments. And now that she had gotten that phone call and turned on the news, she wasn't rushing back into the kitchen every thirty seconds to make sure that he hadn't broken anything.

Briefly, he glanced down at the wastebasket, where a few shards of dinnerware glinted softly. At least he'd only broken the one plate this time. It was a new record for him.

Gohan stacked the plates neatly on a shelf in the cupboard then returned to the sink to dig out some silverware. But he frowned at the content of the news report. Even though the living room was halfway across the house he could clearly hear most of the words. A perk of his non-human half, though admittedly he did not like what he was hearing.

And he dropped the silverware at the news of this disturbance's location. Forks and spoons crashed to the floor, clanging together like the percussion section of an orchestra. It had to have been there, of all places.

"Gohan-chan, is everything all right in there?"

He blinked, Kaasan's voice jolting him back into reality. Abruptly, he glanced at the floor and bent down to pick up the fallen silverware. "Yes, Kaasan! Everything's fine! I've got it under control!"

His mind wandered off again as he carefully piled the last few forks into his hands once more. But he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing.

West Capitol. Granted he would have been concerned of anywhere that had suffered that kind of damage, but he had friends there. Bulma and her family ran Capsule Corporation from that city. And Yamucha played on its pro baseball team. While Yamucha was still a fairly capable fighter and Capsule Corporation had its own defenses – in addition to Vegeta and little Trunks – he just couldn't help worrying about them. Worry was a big part of his life that he had never been able to expel from his mind despite the fact that there hadn't been anything to worry about since . . .

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath; despite the passage of four years, it still bothered him sometimes. Cell. There hadn't been anything to worry about since Cell.

The little shudder within him passed, and he resumed his clean up of the dishes. He would have dearly liked to leave for West Capitol just to make sure that everyone was all right. Sensing ki was not always enough; he wanted to confirm things with his own eyes. But there was no way that Kaasan was going to let him go. She would think that it was too dangerous. From the sounds of the report, the danger had passed, but she was not likely to accept that if it meant his going there.

That worry still gnawed at him, though. So much so that he decided to do something that he rarely had the courage to do. Once he finished putting away the dishes, he took a deep breath and stepped into the living room.

The news channel was still on, though Kaasan was no longer on the telephone. Her body was tense, rigid. Only for a moment, though, before it relaxed into its normal posture.

Gohan swallowed. "Um . . . Kaasan . . . I was wondering if maybe . . ."

Kaasan turned to face him, arms folded confrontationally over her chest. The frown that had gotten so much exercise over the past several years pulled down on her lips full force, and her eyebrows nearly met in the middle of her forehead. It was quite obvious that she knew what he had been about to ask – and substantially more obvious what her answer to that question was. She didn't even have to say anything.

"Uh . . . Never mind," he said, taking a small shuffling step backward. "I think I'll just go and do some extra homework . . ."

As quickly as he could, Gohan turned away from her hard glare and hurried to his room, not even bothering to shut the door behind him. He let free a restrained breath. Well, that had gone about as well as he had expected. It had been the weirdest vain little hope that had prompted him to even try that, anyway; the odds on it were pretty bad. Although . . .

He glanced up at his window; it was finally warm enough consistently to have the window open, and the curtains flapped softly in the gentle breeze. It would still be easy to climb through that window if he wanted to. While he was no longer very small – he had hit his growth spurt about a year and a half ago – he was thinner and leaner now. The added height had slimmed down the breadth that he had possessed as a young child. He could still fit through here.

But he frowned at himself. There he went, thinking of sneaking out again. He'd been getting that horrible impulse ever since he received the wound on his calf which still hadn't healed. And besides . . . Sneaking out to West Capitol was like asking to get caught; there was no way that he could get there and back before Kaasan would come to check on him.

Gohan chewed on his lip, a nervous habit that he had acquired at no specific point in his life. He couldn't just let this whole thing lie anymore. First that strange, seemingly permanent wound on his leg, and now this sudden attack on West Capitol . . . Well, the two things didn't really strike him as being coincidences.

Perhaps that was his answer. A quick check around the nearby woods was something that he might be able to get away with. Those creatures could very well still be out there for all he knew – so adept were they at masking their ki, if it could even be referred to as such, that he couldn't know for sure unless he took a closer inspection.

Decision made, Gohan briefly checked over his shoulder to make sure that Kaasan wasn't coming before trotting over to the open window. He had just placed his foot on the sill and was about to hop out when a surprised voice stopped him.

"Hey, where ya goin', niichan?"

Great. He didn't need this right now. Gohan took a breath to steady his nerves and looked back at Goten, who was standing in the doorway with a confused expression on his face. "I'm not really going anywhere in particular. I'll be back soon, so don't tell Kaasan."

Goten gave him a worried frown. "Niichan, I dunno . . ."

"C'mon. This'll be the last time I ask you to do something like this, okay?"

"Well . . ." Goten furrowed his little brow in thought. After a few seconds, he nodded. "Okay. It's a secret."

Gohan nodded his thanks, and took off out the window before anything more could be said. Just in case Kaasan happened to be looking out any of the other windows, he shot half a mile up into the air to ensure that he would not pass into her line of sight. It wouldn't do at all to be caught before he had even really started.

He didn't fly all that far from the house before he descended again, remembering how close that strange presence had been to his home. His eyes picked out a small clearing in which he could land and he touched down lightly upon the grass. In fact, this looked like the same clearing that he had found Goten in last week – and it probably was. While most clearings would look the same to city folk, those who lived in the woodland areas could fairly readily distinguish one from another by small details. This was as good a place to start as any.

Not that he knew precisely what he was looking for. The creatures themselves, or the signs of their passing . . . Really, he had come here pretty blindly, only out of an impulse to do something, anything at all. Without even a semblance of a plan he didn't quite know what to do. Despite the fact that no one was around he felt an embarrassed flush creep onto his cheeks. This wasn't one of his more intelligent moments. Some scholar he was.

How likely was it that the creatures had stayed here, anyway? How could he know whether or not they were highly nomadic or the type of thing that set down roots, so to speak? By the second, he was feeling like a bigger and bigger idiot. Perhaps he should just go home until he had thought this whole thing through and actually had some vague idea of what he was doing . . .

Something brushed against his senses, suddenly. It was only the smallest bit, like the very tip of a feather tickling his skin. But a year of surviving alone in a desert and years after that of combat had taught him to pay attention to the small things – they may or may not be dangerous on their own, but if they went ignored they could very easily turn into big things. He hadn't lived as long as he had by being ignorant.

The slight rise in his ki was involuntary, beyond even his advanced level of control, which admittedly was probably not as advanced as it used to be. He hadn't really fought for four years, save for the occasional spar with Piccolo-san. Thus he knew for a fact that he wasn't quite as sharp as he used to be. A small thrill in his stomach whispered that maybe he should have kept his skills up a little better.

He was on full alert now, heading with slow, deliberate steps toward that tiny presence that still existed on the edge of his senses. Guardedly, he tried his voice. "What's out there? I know you're here."

The funny thing was, he wasn't quite sure whether or not he really wanted an answer.

* * *

The creature watched carefully, waiting for the owner of the voice to become visible. All it could hear now was the lightest of steps upon the forest floor. Were it unable to sense ki, it might have deceived itself into thinking that the figure was heading away from it, no longer in its proximity. But no. The figure was most certainly getting closer.

The creature was not alone; rarely did its kind travel singly. This was a measure of comfort to it, for the figure that was approaching was most certainly a target – and a familiar one at that, one that they had already disabled. Or so they had thought, anyway. The level of ki that radiated from the target made the creature wonder whether the venom in its kind's claws had produced any real effect. It was still unnervingly powerful – powerful enough to still wipe them out completely with little effort. Needless to say, this was not an encouraging sign.

When was their yashoku going to get back? They couldn't deal with this target now even though they had presumably weakened him. It was obvious even to the weakest of minds that they needed those reinforcements, and quickly. What if this target found them first?

One of the others quietly jabbered something at it and it very nearly let out a breath of relief. A quick glance over its shoulder indicated the presence of a slowly growing cloud of fog, solidifying even as it formed. Well, it was about time. It was entirely possible that they had been on the verge of being slaughtered. Now, they at least had a better shot at getting through this mission alive.

Thus reassured, even if only a little, the creature turned back to the target – he had finally come into full view, halting in his steps as though he could detect their presence. Though it was a little dry in the throat, the creature did manage a smile; new presences poured through the fog, ones far more powerful than any of them.

Things would be so much easier after this target was eliminated.

* * *


	6. BOOK ONE, CHAPTER SIX

_**Inversion of Shadows**_

**BOOK ONE, CHAPTER SIX**

That was it – they were all doomed.

Dende didn't even try to stop this morbid thought from cycling through his mind as he sat huddled next to the guardrail. He wrapped his arms around his knees and slowly rocked back and forth. This at least was a less destructive habit than his usual tearing of clothes, but it was also less satisfying to his nerves.

"Oh, pull yourself together, boy; it doesn't necessarily have to be the end of the world."

He got the distinct impression that Baba was not someone accustomed to comforting people. It might have just been her scratchy voice, but the words sounded so harsh, impatient. Needless to say, the tone was not very effective.

Still, of his own accord, he at least stopped the rocking. "Then what are we supposed to do? I don't see how . . ."

It all just seemed so hopeless. There was an ancient evil out there, one that had apparently been native to this and other worlds in millennia gone by before being cast away by higher powers. And somehow, it was starting to find its way back – presumably to reclaim what it had lost long ago.

And it had ways to do that. Some were frighteningly powerful, while others were not as much so. But these weaker ones could render a world's best protectors nearly helpless. Dende had already seen this with his own eyes: the wound on Gohan's leg. Whether it had affected him by the time of his visit to the Lookout, Dende did not know. However, there would surely be an adverse effect upon his power by now. And if too many of the others suffered a similar injury . . .

"Well, all of us can't sit around here and do nothing; that much is true," Korin said. The once-permanent smile upon his feline lips had shifted into a frown. It was as much of an unencouraging sight as anything else. "We're definitely going to need a little help on a couple of fronts."

"You don't mean go to the other plane, do you?" Dende asked nervously. In spite of his fear, he used his staff to help himself to his feet. He could at least look brave even if he weren't feeling that way. "That seems awfully risky . . ."

Of course, not doing anything would be even riskier. They had no guarantees that Earth's warriors would still be capable of turning back this threat. If he and the rest of the pantheon didn't try anything, then his little scenario of doom would no doubt come to pass.

Dende shook his head, stood a little straighter. "Never mind," he said before any of the others could remonstrate him. He was the planet's guardian, so maybe he ought to start acting like it. "I understand. So . . . Who goes?"

He shrank involuntarily as everyone's eyes came to rest upon him – even Korin's, which were always shut. The answer was clear in all of the expressions, and he could not help but swallow a lump in his throat. They were thinking . . .

"Me? But . . . I . . . I don't . . . you . . ." he tried, but a complete sentence failed to make it out of his mouth. In resignation, his head lowered and his shoulders drooped.

"Like it or not, boy, you have to go." This was Baba again, only she was clearly not even trying to be consoling this time. "You're the highest ranking deity on this planet. And it's not like you'll be alone there – I'm well-known in those parts, so it only makes sense that I go with you."

There was no way around it, was there? As much as Dende hated the idea of going alone, he didn't feel that much better with Baba at his side. He missed Nail; his warrior friend had always been a comforting presence, but couldn't truly speak to him anymore as he had years ago fused with Piccolo. Kuririn would have been nice to have around in a situation like this, but Dende couldn't ask him to go on a journey of this nature. He really was stuck.

"I guess you're right," he relented finally. Though he didn't feel like doing so, he raised his head. "But what about things here?"

Popo stepped forward at this. He had been mostly quiet during this meeting, which was not an unusual thing in and of itself; the man was friendly, but not much in the way of chatter. The only thing that had made this silence strange was his clear understanding of the situation in comparison to everyone else here. "It would probably be best for me to remain at the Lookout. Earth will need someone to watch over it in your absence."

"And speaking of the more earthly matters . . ." Korin's voice trailed off as his gaze shifted elsewhere. Dende followed his glance to the spot where Yajirobe had been standing – only the samurai was not there anymore. Korin sighed. "I should have seen that coming. Don't worry though; you and Baba should probably get going, Dende."

Korin's eyes turned back to him, and Dende started at the wickedly mischievous grin on the old cat's face.

"You've got your own business to attend to," Korin continued. "I can handle Yajirobe."

* * *

He may not have been the smartest guy in the world, but he could see a terrible assignment coming a mile away.

Hand under hand, foot under foot, Yajirobe climbed down the massive spire that was Korin Tower with the ease of long practice. Over the years he had gone up and down many times on a journey that could kill any normal man. It didn't phase him at all anymore. Just a part of his normal routine.

Not that terrible assignments weren't part of that same normal routine, but they were something that did still phase him. Getting a mission from Korin was like being audited. This time especially. World crises generally meant less appealing missions.

Which was why he had stealthily snuck off the tower's main platform when Korin had begun speaking of a defense on two fronts – he knew that he would end up as part of one of them. It wasn't a very fun prospect.

Not that he was afraid. No, certainly not that. This world had a slew of super powerful warriors, far beyond anything that he wanted to be. Let them handle things for a change; he was getting real tired of having to save everyone's butts. The others were just going to have to learn to get along without him.

A cold wind came over his bare arms, but he did not shiver at its touch. It was a more than welcome thing after spending the past forty minutes or so climbing down this stupid tower. The coolness was welcomed by his overheating body.

What wasn't welcomed, however, was what he saw when he took a brief glance upward. To most people, it would look pretty innocent – but anyone who knew Korin would know better than that. The small black cloud floated above him, its surface slowly undulating as if it were liquid water instead of gaseous water. Of course, it was a mystical cloud, so who said that it was actually made of that anyway?

Yajirobe just shrugged; he wondered at the random thoughts that wandered into his head sometimes. But he didn't wonder at the black cloud. He glared at it. "Forget it, cat. You're not getting me back up there; I've got trouble enough as it is without you adding more."

With that, he continued his journey down the tower. He steadfastly refused to acknowledge his last glimpse of that black cloud. For the smallest second, he could have sworn that the thing was laughing at him.

* * *

What in the world . . .

Gohan's attention snapped to his left, where he could abruptly sense several sources of non-ki. Strong ones, much more so than the ones that had touched his senses last week. Even though it was daytime his eyes had trouble piercing through the shadows cast by the trees at the clearing's edge; he still could not see the source.

He was relieved of that problem a little more quickly than he would have liked.

With a surprised yelp, he threw himself against the ground as a tall form shot out from the trees with a hand raised for a strike. The form sailed over his head, its raised hand clipping a few hairs. He didn't waste any time in kicking himself up to his feet, sliding by instinct into a defensive posture. Breath came in uneven gasps from his lungs, and he thanked goodness that his reflexes were still at an acceptable level; that blow could have taken his head off had he been even a second slower.

Now that it was in the clearing, Gohan could finally get a good look at this thing. What he saw disturbed him greatly, even if a large part of him had been expecting it. Perhaps eight feet tall, disproportionate arms, pale yellow skin . . . It fit the description of that news report almost perfectly. And it wasn't alone, either.

Tensely, Gohan glanced over his shoulder for a second to where he could sense the other presences. It was awfully close-quarters here, so fighting them all at once would be far too difficult should they try that tactic . . . He shook his head. Deal with a situation if it came – it was best to keep the mind attuned to the task at hand.

Which was all the easier now that the creature was attacking him again. He ducked under a swung arm, hopped over a lunging leg to drive his elbow into the thing's gut. It staggered backward, falling for a second . . . But it quickly regained its feet. In its eyes, there was clearly no intention of backing down. Gohan frowned at this; he didn't want to have to kill it.

A power raised up behind him, shooting in his direction with an almost alarming speed. He caught it in time, though, and dove to the side – the new attacker sailed past him and ploughed right into the first, claws tearing a hole into the first one's side.

Mentally, Gohan winced at this; that blow had been aimed at his head, too. These things might be a little incompetent, but they certainly did mean business. In these situations he liked to try and diffuse things by talking them out, taking away the other's desire to fight. He got the impression, however, that words were going to be pretty useless here.

A hissing through the brush caught his ears and this time he did not react quickly enough. A light splash of hot liquid grazed the side of his leg, the sound only intensifying now that it had made contact – and he hissed himself as this liquid ate through his pant leg and into his skin. While it didn't seem to be doing much more than burning him – the few drops on their own did not seem to be able to eat through his skin very significantly – the pain was more than a distraction.

He looked up too late to dodge the next blow.

The fist caught him full in the chest, knocking the breath from him and sent him hurtling across the clearing – and through a couple of tree trunks for his trouble. Gohan tumbled to the ground, instinctively tucking himself into a ball to prevent further injury. The pain in his leg had subsided a bit by now, and he used his rolling motion to regain his feet once more.

He took a deep breath, eyes on the clearing to catch any oncoming attack. There were getting to be too many of them out there for him to handle comfortably. Perhaps, though he disliked the thought, it was about time that he evened up the odds a little bit.

The power never completely left his consciousness anymore; it always remained there, even by the barest of threads, from long habit. He couldn't get rid of it if he tried – a fact known from experience. Thus he found it easily in its accustomed location and called upon it as he always did.

Only it didn't come.

"What –" was all that he got out before one of his assailants came charging through the brush after him. In too much shock to put up much in the way of a defense, Gohan merely shot upward, taking to the air to give himself more time.

Granted, he had never liked that he was as powerful as he was. Nobody deserved that much strength, least of all him. But not being able to call upon it was . . . He knew that his power would degrade now that he wasn't training, but this was ridiculous. Impossible, even. Something else had to be wrong.

He didn't have the time to consider it, though. The skies were no save haven; the creatures flew up to meet him – three this time. Their reach advantage made things awkward even though he was more than accustomed to fighting people much larger than himself. His body weaved in a jerky dance of evasions, careful to only scarcely get out of the path of one set of claws so as to avoid being impaled by another. Every so often, he felt the lightest of grazes against his skin and all the while, the back of his mind struggled to summon his power.

Gohan finally caught a break as one of his opponents left an opening and he rammed his shoulder into its chest; as it began to fall back, he shot his foot out to the same spot in order to speed the creature's trip to the ground. And at last the back of his mind touched upon his power and started to summon it forth –

An invisible force suddenly wrapped around his body, bringing the summoning to an abrupt halt. Every inch of him felt restricted and numb, though the latter sensation was not with him for long as a set of claws jabbed into his shoulder and pain poured into him as a substitute for the blood that now poured out. Still he struggled against his bindings, body braced for the next strike, one of what surely would be many.

But no new strikes landed.

* * *

It sensed the new presence perhaps even before the yashoku did and acted in accordance with its instincts – namely, it began searching for a quiet way out of here. This new presence was a powerful one indeed, and thus it should stay and do its job . . . but it would not be missed. Its brethren could handle things here.

Finding an opening, it shuffled along under the bushes, unseen by the others of its kind. Yes, it was time to vacate from this battle.

Normally, it would not have tried something like this. The inhabitants of the worlds they reclaimed meant nothing at all. Save for this time. That little one had gotten to it somehow, and the first warrior to show up had been the little one's protector. In some strange way, it didn't want any further part with this target.

That, and it wanted to get out of here alive. The sky flashed brightly above it, lit by the battle beginning anew.

* * *

Gohan would have smiled in relief, but he still was unable to move. He'd regained his motion for a fraction of a second before the bindings came across him in force once more. He could deal with that, however. The situation would be remedied within a few minutes.

It was convenient that the battle was going on directly in front of him, for he would otherwise have been unable to follow it. He watched with pure appreciation and admiration – in addition to a bit of smug thankfulness; he should have known that things would happen this way – as Piccolo-san fired a ki blast directly into the chest of one of the creatures, sending it tumbling from the sky.

The other one came now, but his mentor effortlessly caught it by its long skinny arm, smoothly whirling it about in a circle before hurling it to the ground. And he sent another ki blast down at one that had decided rather badly to join in the fray.

At the impact of the second creature, the invisible bonds around Gohan melted, and he nearly fell from the sky himself at the sudden relaxation of his muscles. Still a little numb in the extremities, he flexed his fingers and toes in an effort to get his blood flowing there again. When he finally regained feeling in them, he smiled up at Piccolo-san.

"You okay, kid?" Only one who knew the Namekseijin well could have detected the slight hint of concern in both eyes and voice. It was absent from both, however, by the next words. "You really need to grow up. Still can't get yourself out of trouble without me."

Gohan smiled brightly in spite of the harsh tone; this was simply his teacher's way. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said, with a brief glance to his shoulder. The blood made it look worse than it was and he had fought through more serious wounds than this. "But I don't think this is done yet."

He could sense Piccolo-san's acknowledgement even though he was given no physical sign of it. Rather, his mentor dove toward the trees, where the last few non-ki signatures resided. Gohan wasted little time following suit, once again groping for the power that he'd been about to summon before he had been paralyzed.

As he burst down through the treetops, the world around him exploded into a fiery tint of golden light. Finally. The presence of his mentor and the familiar pulse of the Super Saiyajin power washed away the fears and doubts that had been plaguing him moments ago. It wasn't confidence – not quite. Reassurance was probably a better word for this feeling. He was reassured.

The speed of the creatures, which had caused him worry when this fight had begun, had been reduced to average at best. He darted under one attack, leaning into one of his own all in the same motion. And for safety's sake he added two more; the creature dropped to the ground before it could even attempt another strike.

There was still something wrong, though. Even after so short a time, his power was threatening to abandon him. He was keeping it active by sheer force of will, reminded disturbingly of when he'd only recently attained this form. Back then, maintaining it had been a great problem; his body had found it too foreign and had tried to expel it. Now, though . . . the form was practically second nature to him, even after four years of barely using it.

He caught a glimpse of one of the creatures before it was taken out by a ki blast from Piccolo-san, who was fighting beside him. Gohan nearly started at its appearance, for it had not been the tall form of those that he had battled, but a small and muscular one like Goten had described last week. So they _were_ related . . .

Gohan landed carefully, taking an absent look around to ensure that the battle was concluded. With this confirmed, he allowed his power to leave him in a smooth, flowing rush. His left leg wobbled underneath him, reminding him of that harsh acidic substance that had struck him there. But he spared no more notice on this; he had more important matters to consider.

He didn't even hear Piccolo-san step closer. His mentor's shadow came over him, a most fitting complement to the sense of foreboding that grew within him. "I don't know what's happening, Piccolo-san."

For his part, Piccolo-san gave a grunt of acknowledgement, but did not deign to say anything as of yet.

"These creatures . . ." Gohan went on, not even speaking directly to anyone. It was more to sort out the tangle of thoughts that threatened to ensnare his mind. "And the Super Saiyajin form . . . it was tough for me to call upon, but I can't figure out . . ."

A sudden thought occurred to him, and he looked worriedly down at his leg. Not his left, where he had suffered that acid burn today, but his right, where he had suffered that claw wound last week. The wound that even Dende's talents had failed to heal completely. He was getting a terrible feeling that this was not the only disconcerting feature about it. Perhaps it might be the cause?

"Hey, Piccolo-san?" He finally turned to his mentor, who looked as tall and imposing as ever in his white cape and turban, with his arms crossed over his chest. Gohan was about to voice his question, but his throat went dry as he noticed something.

A set of four parallel scratch marks on Piccolo-san's arm.

* * *


End file.
